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African-American
http://wn.com/African-American -
Akiko Kojima
(October 29, 1936 in Tokyo) is a Japanese model. The first Miss Universe to originate from Asia, Akiko was a 22-year-old model from Tokyo, Japan when she bested four other finalists from Norway, the USA, England, and Brazil for the 1959 Miss Universe crown in Long Beach, California. At 5 ft 7in (1.70 m.), Akiko measured 37-23-38 inches (94-58–96 cm.), which many believed as "incredible dimensions". She denied having undergone breast surgery. Akiko settled into a quiet married life after her reign. Forty eight years later another Japanese national, Riyo Mori, won the Miss Universe pageant in 2007.
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Alan Alda
Alan Alda (born January 28, 1936) is an American actor, director and screenwriter. A five-time Emmy Award and six-time Golden Globe Award winner, he is best known for his role as Hawkeye Pierce in the TV series M*A*S*H. During the 1970s and 1980s, he was viewed as the archetypal sympathetic male, though in recent years, he has appeared in roles that counter that image.
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Alan Crosland
Alan Crosland (August 10, 1894 – July 16, 1936) was an American actor and film director.
http://wn.com/Alan_Crosland -
Albert Finney
Albert Finney (born 9 May 1936) is an English actor. He achieved prominence in films during the early 1960s, and has maintained a successful career in theatre, film and television.
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Albert Fish
Hamilton Howard "Albert" Fish (May 19, 1870 – January 16, 1936) was an American serial killer. He was also known as the Gray Man, the Werewolf of Wysteria, the Brooklyn Vampire, and The Boogeyman. A child rapist and cannibal, he boasted that he "had children in every state," and at one time put the figure at around 100. However, it is not clear whether he was talking about rapes or cannibalization, less still as to whether he was telling the truth. He was a suspect in at least five murders in his lifetime. Fish confessed to three murders that police were able to trace to a known homicide, and he confessed to stabbing at least two other people. He was put on trial for the kidnapping and murder of Grace Budd, and was convicted and executed by electric chair.
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Alex Rocco
Alex Rocco (born February 29, 1936) is an American actor. His roles have ranged from comedy to playing gangsters in Mafia movies.
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Alexander Berkman
Alexander Berkman (November 21, 1870 – June 28, 1936) was an anarchist known for his political activism and writing. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century.
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Alexander Glazunov
Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov (, Aleksandr Konstantinovič Glazunov; ; ; – ) was a Russian composer of the late Russian Romantic period, music teacher and conductor. He served as director of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory between 1905 and 1928 and was also instrumental in the reorganization of the institute into the Petrograd Conservatory, then the Leningrad Conservatory, following the Bolshevik Revolution. He continued heading the Conservatory until 1930, though he had left the Soviet Union in 1928 and did not return. The best known student under his tenure during the early Soviet years was Dmitri Shostakovich.
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Alexander Obolensky
Prince Alexander Sergeevich Obolensky (; 17 February 1916 — 29 March 1940) was a Russian Rurikid prince and an international rugby union footballer who played for England. He was popularly known as just "The Prince" by many sports fans.
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Alf Landon
Alfred "Alf" Mossman Landon (September 9, 1887 – October 12, 1987) was an American Republican politician, who served as the 26th Governor of Kansas from 1933–1937. He was best known for being the Republican Party's (GOP) nominee for President of the United States, defeated in a landslide by Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1936 presidential election.
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Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus (August 11, 1936 - February 24, 1999) was an American short story writer, essayist, and autobiographer. He is recognized as one of the best American short-story writers in the 20th century.
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Andre Kolingba
http://wn.com/Andre_Kolingba -
Andre Pronovost
http://wn.com/Andre_Pronovost -
Andrew Harper
Rev. Dr Andrew Harper (13 November 1844 – 25 November 1936) was a Scottish–Australian biblical scholar, teacher, and school Principal.
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Andrew Prine
Andrew Lewis Prine (born February 14, 1936) is an American film, stage, and television actor.
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Anna Karen
Anna Karen (born 19 September 1936) is a South African-born British film, television and theatre actress.
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Anne Sullivan
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Aribert Reimann
Aribert Reimann (born 4 March 1936 in Berlin) is a German opera composer, pianist and accompanist, known especially for his literary operas. His version of King Lear was written at the suggestion of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau who sang the title role.
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Arlene Golonka
Arlene Golonka (born January 23, 1936) is an American actress. She is perhaps best known for playing Millie Swanson on the television comedies The Andy Griffith Show and Mayberry R.F.D., and often portrayed bubbly, eccentric blondes in supporting character roles on stage, film, and television.
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Arvid Lindman
'Salomon Arvid Achates Lindman' (19 September 1862 – 9 December 1936) was a Swedish Rear Admiral, Industrialist and conservative politician. He was the leader of the right-wing General Electoral Union (Allmänna valmansförbundet) between 1912 and 1935 and leader of Lantmanna- och borgarepartiet (a member party of the General Electoral Union) from 1913 to 1935, except for a short while during 1917 when he served as Minister for Foreign Affairs. He also served twice as Prime Minister of Sweden, from 1906 to 1911 and from 1928 to 1930.
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Austria
Austria or (), officially the Republic of Austria (German: ), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers and has a temperate and alpine climate. Austria's terrain is highly mountainous due to the presence of the Alps; only 32% of the country is below , and its highest point is . The majority of the population speaks German, which is also the country's official language. Other local official languages are Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene.
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Barbara Mikulski
Barbara Ann Mikulski (born July 20, 1936) is the senior United States Senator from Maryland and a member of the Democratic Party. First elected to the Senate in 1986, she is the first woman elected to the Senate from Maryland. She currently ranks 16th in seniority in the Senate, and is the most senior female Senator. She received 1,504,691 votes in her 2004 reelection campaign, the largest number of votes to date for a Senate candidate in Maryland. Mikulski is the second longest-serving female senator and the second longest-serving female member in the history of the United States Congress (only after Margaret Chase Smith and Edith Nourse Rogers, respectively). If Mikulski gets reelected in the 2010 United States Senate election in Maryland, she will become the longest-serving female United States Senator. If she stays in office until March 14 2012, she will become the longest-serving female member in the history of the United States Congress.
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Billy Sherrill
Billy Sherrill (born Phil Campbell, Alabama, November 5, 1936) is a record producer and arranger who is most famous for his association with a number of country artists, most notably Tammy Wynette. Sherrill and business partner Glenn Sutton are regarded as the defining influences of the countrypolitan sound, a smooth amalgamation of pop and country music that was hugely popular during the late 1960s and throughout the '70s. On February 23, 2010 Sherrill was selected for induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame along with Don Williams, Ferlin Husky, and Jimmy Dean. The actual induction will be held later in the year.
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Bobby Abel
Robert Abel (30 November 1857 – 10 December 1936), nicknamed "The Guv'nor", was a Surrey and England opening batsman who was one of the most prolific run-getters in the early years of the County Championship. He was the first England player to "carry his bat" – opening the batting and remaining not out at the end of an innings – through a Test innings, and the first player to score 2000 runs in consecutive seasons – which he did each season between 1895 and 1902.
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Bobby Darin
Bobby Darin (May 14, 1936 – December 20, 1973), born Walden Robert Perciville Cassotto, was a two-time Grammy award winning American singer, Oscar nominated actor and accomplished musician.
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Bradford Bishop
William Bradford Bishop, Jr. (born August 1, 1936) was a United States Foreign Service officer who has been a fugitive from justice since allegedly murdering five members of his family in 1976.
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Bruno Hauptmann
Bruno Richard Hauptmann (November 26, 1899 – April 3, 1936) was a German carpenter sentenced to death and executed for the abduction and murder of Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month-old son of famous pilots Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The Lindbergh kidnapping gained international infamy, and has become known as "The Crime of the Century."
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Buddy Holly
'''Charles Hardin Holley
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Buddy Merrill
Buddy Merrill (born July 16, 1936 as Leslie Merrill Behunin, Jr.) is an American guitar player and musician who was best known as a regular on The Lawrence Welk Show. His style of guitar playing is known as multi-tracking.
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Buenaventura Durruti
José Buenaventura Durruti Dumange (14 July 1896 – 20 November 1936) was a central figure of Spanish anarchism during the period leading up to and including the Spanish Civil War.
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Burnum Burnum
Burnum Burnum (10 January 1936 – 18 August 1997) was an Australian Aboriginal activist, actor, and author. He was born a Woiworrung and Yorta Yorta man at Wallaga Lake in southern New South Wales. He was christened Harry Penrith but took the name of his great grandfather, which means Great Warrior.
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C. K. Williams
Charles Kenneth Williams (b. November 4, 1936) is an American poet. Senior poet Paul Muldoon has described him as “one of the most distinguished poets of his generation.”
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Charles Curtis
Charles Curtis (January 25, 1860 – February 8, 1936) was a United States Representative, a longtime United States Senator from Kansas later chosen as Senate Majority Leader by his Republican colleagues, and the 31st Vice President of the United States. He was the first person with acknowledged Native American ancestry and the first person with acknowledged non-European ancestry to reach either of the two highest offices in the United States government's executive branch. His maternal ancestry was three-quarters' Native American, of ethnic Kaw, Osage and Pottawatomie ancestry. Curtis spent years of childhood living with his maternal grandparents on their Kaw reservation.
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Charles Dierkop
Charles Dierkop (born September 11, 1936) is an American film and television character actor.
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Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) (nicknamed "Slim," "Lucky Lindy" and "The Lone Eagle") was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.
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Charles Nicolle
Charles Jules Henry Nicolle (21 September 1866 Rouen - 28 February 1936 Tunis) was a French bacteriologist who received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his identification of lice as the transmitter of epidemic typhus.
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Chic Sale
Charles "Chic" Sale (August 25, 1885, Huron, South Dakota - November 7, 1936, Los Angeles) was an American actor and vaudevillian. Named at birth Charles Partlow Sale, he was a son of Frank Orville and Lillie Belle [PARTLOW] SALE, and brother of writer, actress Virginia Sale-Wren.
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China
China is seen variously as an ancient civilization extending over a large area in East Asia, a nation and/or a multinational entity.
http://wn.com/China -
Chuck Howley
Charles Louis "Chuck" Howley (born June 28, 1936, in Wheeling, West Virginia) is a former American football linebacker in the National Football League. He spent his career with the Chicago Bears and Dallas Cowboys.
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Clive Swift
Clive Walter Swift (born 9 February 1936) is a British actor who is best known for his starring role as Richard Bucket in the British sitcom Keeping Up Appearances.
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Dahlia Ravikovitch
Dahlia Ravikovitch (, (1936-2005) was an Israeli poet and peace activist.
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Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopper (May 17, 1936 - May 29, 2010) was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954, and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956). During the next 10 years, Hopper appeared frequently on television in guest roles, and by the end of the 1960s had played supporting roles in several films.
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Dick Cavett
Richard Alva "Dick" Cavett (born November 19, 1936) is a former American television talk show host known for his conversational style and in-depth discussion of issues. Cavett appeared regularly on nationally broadcast television in the United States in five consecutive decades, the 1960s through the 2000s.
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Dick Howser
Richard Dalton Howser (May 14, 1936–June 17, 1987) was an American Major League Baseball shortstop, coach and manager.
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Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo (born November 20, 1936) is an American author, playwright, and occasional essayist whose work paints a detailed portrait of American life in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. DeLillo's novels have tackled subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, sports, the complexities of language, performance art, the Cold War, mathematics, the advent of the digital age, and global terrorism. He currently lives near New York City in the suburb of Bronxville.
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Don Drysdale
Donald Scott "Don" Drysdale (July 23, 1936 – July 3, 1993) was a Major League Baseball player and Hall of Fame right-handed pitcher with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He was one of the dominant starting pitchers of the 1960s, and became a radio and television broadcaster following his playing career. He was born in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California and attended Van Nuys High School, where one of his baseball teammates was actor Robert Redford. The Disney character Herbie has the number 53, on account of it being Drysdale's number.
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Donald Neilson
Donald Neilson (1 August 1936; also known as the "Black Panther") is a British multiple murderer, whose most notable victim was Lesley Whittle, an heiress from Highley, Shropshire, England.
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Duncan Edwards
Duncan Edwards (1 October 1936 – 21 February 1958) was an English footballer who played for Manchester United and the England national team. He was one of the Busby Babes, the young United team formed under manager Matt Busby in the mid 1950s, and one of eight players who died as a result of the Munich air disaster.
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Earl W. Bascom
Earl W. Bascom (June 19, 1906 – August 28, 1995) was an American painter, printmaker and sculptor, raised in Canada, who portrayed his own experiences cowboying and rodeoing across the American and Canadian West.
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Elizabeth Dole
Mary Elizabeth Hanford "Liddy" Dole (born July 29, 1936) is an American politician who served in both the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush presidential administrations, as well as a United States Senator.
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Elizabeth MacRae
Elizabeth MacRae (born Elizabeth Herndon MacRae on 7 December 1936 in Fayetteville, North Carolina) is an actress who guest starred on various television shows from the 1960s to the 1980s. Her papers, which include many scripts from the various shows on which she appeared, are held in the Southern Historical Collection of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Elmira Zherzdeva
Elmira Zherzdeva or Elmira Sergievna Zherzdeva (Russian - Эльмира Сергеевна Жерздева - Born on March 6, 1936, in Bolokhovo, the USSR), is a Soviet singer and was awarded as a Meritorious Artist.
http://wn.com/Elmira_Zherzdeva -
Emile Lahoud
http://wn.com/Emile_Lahoud -
Ernest Nash
Ernest Nash (September 14, 1898 – May 17, 1974) was a student of Roman architecture and pioneer of archaeological photography. Nash was born as Ernst Nathan, but later changed his name to Nash when he was living in the United States between 1939 and 1952.
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Eva Hesse
Eva Hesse (January 11, 1936 - May 29, 1970), was a German-born American sculptor, known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics.
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F. W. De Klerk
http://wn.com/F_W_De_Klerk -
Florence King
Florence Virginia King (b. January 5, 1936, Washington, D.C.) is an American novelist, essayist and columnist.
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Fuad I of Egypt
Fuad I (26 March 1868 – 28 April 1936) was the Sultan and later King of Egypt and Sudan, Sovereign of Nubia, Kordofan, and Darfur. The ninth ruler of Egypt and Sudan from the Muhammad Ali Dynasty, he became Sultan of Egypt and Sudan in 1917, succeeding his elder brother Sultan Hussein Kamel. He substituted the title of King for Sultan when the United Kingdom unilaterally granted Egypt nominal independence in 1922.
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G. K. Chesterton
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an English writer. His prolific and diverse output included philosophy, ontology, poetry, play writing, journalism, public lecturing and debating, biography, Christian apologetics, fantasy and detective fiction.
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Gary Conway
Gary Conway is an American actor and screenwriter.
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Georg Michaelis
Georg Michaelis (September 8, 1857 – July 24, 1936) became the first Chancellor of Germany with a non-noble background.
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George Landenberger
George Bertram Landenberger (May 12, 1879 - January 15, 1936) was a United States Navy Captain and the 23rd (and 21st unique) Governor of American Samoa, from May 12, 1932 to April 10, 1934. Landenberger commanded many ships during his naval career, as well as two naval yards. He received the Navy Cross for his actions commanding the USS Indiana during World War I. He died of cancer in 1936, one year after retiring from military service.
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George Voinovich
George Victor Voinovich (born July 15, 1936) is the senior United States Senator from the state of Ohio, and a member of the Republican Party. Previously, he served as the 65th Governor of Ohio from 1991 to 1998, and as the 54th mayor of Cleveland from 1980 to 1989. Voinovich will retire from the Senate in 2011 when his current term expires.
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Giridharilal Kedia
http://wn.com/Giridharilal_Kedia -
Grazia Deledda
Grazia Deledda (September 27, 1871—August 15, 1936) was an Italian writer whose works won her the Nobel Prize for Literature for 1926.
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Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev (Григо́рий Евсе́евич Зино́вьев, alternative transliteration Grigorii Ovseyevish Zinoviev, born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky (Радомысльский); - August 25, 1936) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician.
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Harmon Killebrew
Harmon Clayton Killebrew (; born June 29, 1936) is a former Major League Baseball player. In a 22-year major league career, he was second only to Babe Ruth in American League (AL) home runs and retired as the AL career leader in home runs by a right-handed batter (the record has since been broken). He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984.
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Harry B. Smith
Harry Bache Smith ( December 28, 1860 – January 1, 1936 ) was a writer, lyricist and composer. The most prolific of all American stage writers, he is said to have written over 300 librettos and more than 6000 lyrics. Some of his best-known works were librettos for the composer Victor Herbert. He also wrote the book or lyrics for several versions of the Ziegfeld Follies.
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Harry Kalas
Harry Norbert Kalas (March 26, 1936 – April 13, 2009) was an American sportscaster, best known for his Ford C. Frick Award-winning role as lead play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball's Philadelphia Phillies. Kalas was also closely identified with the National Football League, serving as a voice-over narrator for NFL Films productions (a regular feature on Inside the NFL) and calling football games nationally for Westwood One radio.
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Helen Keller
Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
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Henry B. Walthall
Henry Brazeale Walthall (March 16, 1878June 17, 1936) was an American film actor.
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Hirohito
Hirohito (), also known as Emperor Shōwa () (Shōwa tennō), (April 29, 1901 – January 7, 1989) was the 124th emperor of Japan according to the traditional order, reigning from December 25, 1926, until his death in 1989. Although better known outside of Japan by his personal name Hirohito, in Japan he is now referred to exclusively by his posthumous name Emperor Shōwa. The word Shōwa is the name of the era that corresponded with the Emperor's reign, and was made the Emperor's own name upon his death.
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Howard Greenfield
Howard Greenfield (March 15, 1936 – March 4, 1986) was an American lyricist and songwriter, who for several years in the 1960s worked out of the famous Brill Building. He is best known for his series of successful songwriting collaborations, including one with Neil Sedaka from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, and a near-simultaneous (and equally successful) songwriting partnership with Jack Keller throughout most of the 1960s.
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Hugh Patrick Lygon
Hugh Patrick Lygon (2 November 1904 – 19 August 1936 Rothenburg, Bavaria) was the son of William Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp and is often believed to be the inspiration for Sebastian in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. He was a friend and lover of Waugh's at Oxford (A. L. Rowse believed the two to be lovers), where both were members of the Hypocrites' Club.
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Ingeborg Hallstein
Ingeborg Hallstein (born 23 May 1936 in Munich) is a German operatic soprano.
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Iolanda Balaş
Iolanda Balaş (later Söter, , born 12 December 1936) is a Romanian former athlete (Romanian father and Hungarian mother) and an Olympic champion in high jump, considered one of the greatest high jumpers ever.
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Ismail Kadare
Ismail Kadare (Ismail Kadaré in French) (born 1936) is an Albanian writer. He is known for his novels, although he was first noticed for his poetry collections. In the 1960s he focused on short stories until the publication of his first novel, The General of the Dead Army. In 1996 he became a lifetime member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of France. In 1992, he was awarded the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca; in 2005, he won the inaugural Man Booker International Prize and in 2009 the Prince of Asturias Award of Arts. He has divided his time between Albania and France since 1990. Kadare has been a Nobel Prize in Literature candidate several times. He began writing very young, in the mid 1950s. His works have been published in about thirty languages.
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Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (; September 14, 1849 – February 27, 1936) was a Russian physiologist, psychologist, and physician. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1904 for research pertaining to the digestive system. Pavlov is widely known for first describing the phenomenon of classical conditioning.
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James Bevel
James L. Bevel (October 19, 1936 – December 19, 2008) was an American minister and leader of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement who, as the Director of Direct Action and Director of Nonviolent Education of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) initiated, strategized, directed, and developed SCLC's three major successes of the era: the 1963 Birmingham Children's Crusade, the 1965 Selma Voting Rights Movement, and the 1966 Chicago Open Housing Movement. James Bevel also called for and initially organized the 1963 March on Washington and initiated and strategized the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches, SCLC's two main public gatherings of the era. For his work in the 1960s he has been referred to as the "Father of Voting Rights", the "Strategist and Architect of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement", and as half of the Bevel/King team that formulated and communicated the actions, issues, and dialogues which created the historical changes of the era.
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James Churchward
James Churchward (February 27, 1851-January 4, 1936) is best known as a British born occult writer. However, he was also a patented inventor, engineer, and expert fisherman.
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James Dobson
James Clayton "Jim" Dobson, Jr. (born April 21, 1936) is an American evangelical Christian author, psychologist, and founder of Focus on the Family (FOTF). Dobson, who founded the nonprofit organization in 1977 and also chaired it until 2003, has never drawn a salary from the organization, but has used it to promote his related books and publications and has an income through them.
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James Lee Burke
James Lee Burke (born December 5, 1936) is an American author of mysteries, best known for his Dave Robicheaux series. He has won an Edgar Award for Black Cherry Blues (1990) and Cimarron Rose (1998). The Robicheaux character has been portrayed twice on screen, first by Alec Baldwin (''Heaven's Prisoners) and then Tommy Lee Jones (In the Electric Mist''). Burke has also written seven miscellaneous crime novels, two short story anthologies and four books starring a new protagonist, Texas attorney Billy Bob Holland.
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James Murray (actor)
James Murray (February 9, 1901 – July 11, 1936) was an American movie actor.
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James Stacy
James Stacy (born December 23, 1936) is an American actor whose career was effectively ended in a motorcycle crash which left him a multiple amputee and took the life of his girlfriend. Returning to acting after his recovery, Stacy retired from acting in 1991.
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Jerry Kramer
Gerald Louis "Jerry" Kramer (born January 23, 1936, in Jordan, Montana) is a former professional football player, author and sports commentator, best remembered for his 11-year NFL career with the Green Bay Packers as an offensive lineman. As a 6'3", 250 pound right guard, #64 was an integral part of the famous "Packer Sweep", a signature play in which both guards rapidly pull out from their normal positions and lead-block for the running back going around the end. Kramer was an All-Pro five times, and a member of the NFL's 50th anniversary team in 1969, but surprisingly, even after appearing on the list of finalists ten times since becoming eligible, has not been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In NFL Network's Top 10 list of players not in the hall of fame, he was rated #1.
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Jesse Owens
Athlete
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Jim Brown
James Nathaniel "Jim" Brown (born February 17, 1936) is an American former professional football player who has also made his mark as an actor. He is best known for his exceptional and record-setting nine-year career as a running back for the NFL Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965. In 2002, he was named by The Sporting News as the greatest professional football player ever. He is considered to be one of the greatest professional athletes the U.S. has ever produced.
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Jim Henson
James Maury "Jim" Henson (September 24, 1936 – May 16, 1990) was an American puppeteer. He was one of the most widely known puppeteers in history and was the creator of The Muppets. He was the leading source behind their long run in the television series Sesame Street and The Muppet Show and films such as The Muppet Movie (1979) and creator of advanced puppets for projects like Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth. He was also an Oscar-nominated film director, Emmy Award-winning television producer, and the founder of The Jim Henson Company, the Jim Henson Foundation, and Jim Henson's Creature Shop. Henson died unexpectedly in 1990 at the age of 53. In 1992, he received the prestigious Courage of Conscience Award from The Peace Abbey.
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Jiří Grygar
Jiří Grygar (March 17, 1936 in Heinersdorf, Germany, now Dziewiętlice, Poland) is a Czech astronomer and popularizer of science. Dr. Grygar is a Kalinga Prize (1996) laureate.
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Joe Louis
Joseph Louis Barrow (May 13, 1914 – April 12, 1981), better known as Joe Louis, was the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949. Nicknamed the Brown Bomber, Louis helped elevate boxing from a nadir in popularity in the post-Jack Dempsey era by establishing a reputation as an honest, hardworking fighter at a time when the sport was dominated by gambling interests. Louis's championship reign lasted 140 consecutive months, during which he participated in 27 championship fights, including 25 successful title defenses – all records for the heavyweight division. In 2005, Louis was named the greatest heavyweight of all time by the International Boxing Research Organization,
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John Bowers
John Bowers (December 25, 1885 – November 17, 1936) was an American stage and silent film actor who starred in ninety-four films including short subjects.
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John Gilbert (actor)
John Gilbert (July 10, 1899 – January 9, 1936) was an American actor and a major star of the silent film era.
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John Heisman
John William Heisman (October 23, 1869 – October 3, 1936) was a prominent American football player and college football and college baseball coach in the early era of American football. The Heisman Trophy, awarded annually to the season's most outstanding college football player is named for him.
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John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, CB (; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946) was a British economist whose ideas have profoundly affected the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics, as well as the economic policies of governments. He greatly refined earlier work on the causes of business cycles, and advocated the use of fiscal and monetary measures to mitigate the adverse effects of economic recessions and depressions. His ideas are the basis for the school of thought known as Keynesian economics, as well as its various offshoots.
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John McCain
John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election.
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Joseph Gosnell
Joseph Arthur Gosnell, Sr., CC, OBC (born June 21, 1936) is a distinguished leader of the Nisga'a people of northern British Columbia.
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Juho Sunila
Johan (Juho) Emil Sunila (August 16, 1875 in Liminka – October 2, 1936 in Helsinki) was a Finnish politician from the Agrarian League, the managing director of the agrarian finance board, and Prime Minister of Finland in two cabinets .
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Ken Loach
Kenneth "Ken" Loach (born 17th June 1936) is a British film and television director.
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Kenneth Copeland
Kenneth Copeland (born December 6, 1936 in Lubbock, Texas) is an American author, speaker, televangelist, Word of Faith proponent, and the founder of the prosperity gospel organization Kenneth Copeland Ministries.
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Kenneth Mars
Kenneth Mars (born April 14, 1936) is an American television, movie and voice actor. Best known for his roles in several Mel Brooks films, the most memorable being the insane Nazi playwright of Springtime for Hitler, Franz Liebkind, in 1968's The Producers and the relentless Police Inspector Hans Wilhelm Fredrich Kemp in 1974's Young Frankenstein.
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Kenny Guinn
Kenneth Carroll "Kenny" Guinn (August 24, 1936 – July 22, 2010) was an American educator, businessman and the 27th Governor of Nevada from 1999 to 2007. Guinn was a member of the Republican Party.
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Kent Douglas
Kent Gemmell Douglas (b. February 6, 1936 in Cobalt, Ontario - d. April 12, 2009) was a professional ice hockey defenceman and coach. He is best remembered for winning the Calder Trophy as Rookie of the Year in the 1962–63 NHL season, when he played for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
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Lance Reventlow
Lance Reventlow, born Lawrence Graf von Haugwitz-Hardenberg-Reventlow (February 24, 1936 – July 24, 1972) was a wealthy playboy, entrepreneur, and racing driver.
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Larry Hovis
Larry Hovis (February 20, 1936 – September 9, 2003) was an American singer and actor best known for playing a fictional prisoner of war on the 1960s television sitcom ''Hogan's Heroes''.
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Larry Staverman
Larry Joseph Staverman (October 11, 1936 – July 12, 2007) was an American professional basketball player and coach. A 6' 7" forward from Villa Madonna College (now known as Thomas More College), Staverman was drafted in the 9th round of the 1958 NBA Draft by the Cincinnati Royals. He had a five-year career as a player in the NBA, with the Royals, the Chicago Zephyrs/Baltimore Bullets, and the Detroit Pistons.
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Larry Verne
Larry Verne (born February 8, 1936, Minneapolis, Minnesota) was an American novelty song singer. Verne scored two U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart hit singles in 1960: "Mister Livingston" (#75) and "Mr. Custer" (#1, #9 R&B;). "Mr. Custer" was written by Fred Darian, Al DeLory, and Joe Van Winkle. The record sold over one million copies, earning a gold disc. In the UK, "Mr. Custer" was successfully covered by Charlie Drake.
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Lev Kamenev
Lev Borisovich Kamenev (, born Rozenfeld, Ро́зенфельд; – August 25, 1936) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a prominent Soviet politician. He was briefly the nominal head of the Soviet state in 1917 and a founding member (1919) and later chairman (1923-1924) of the ruling Politburo.
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Lincoln Steffens
Joseph Lincoln Steffens (April 6, 1846 – August 9, 1936) was an American journalist, lecturer, and political philosopher, and one of the most famous practitioners of the journalistic style called muckraking. He is also known for his 1921 statement, upon his return from the Soviet Union: "I have been over into the future, and it works." (Usually reprinted as "I've seen the future, and it works".) The altered version of his quote can be found on the title page of the 1933 edition of Red Virtue, written by his wife, Ella Winter.
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Loren Acton
Loren Wilber Acton (born March 7, 1936) is an American physicist who flew on Space Shuttle mission STS-51-F as a Payload Specialist for the Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory.
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Lottie Pickford
Lottie Pickford (June 9, 1893 – December 9, 1936) was a Canadian-born silent film actress, socialite, and sister to Mary Pickford and Jack Pickford. Her career is often overshadowed by that of her siblings and though she was a notable figure in the 1920s her films and role in the Pickford acting family is now largely forgotten. Perhaps one of her best known roles was in The Diamond from the Sky directed by William Desmond Taylor in 1915.
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Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello (; 28 June 1867 – 10 December 1936) was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written in Sicilian. Typical for Pirandello is to show how art or illusion mixes with reality and how people see things in a very different way — words are unreliable and reality is at the same time true and false. Pirandello's tragic farces are often seen as forerunners for Theatre of the Absurd.
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Margaret Mitchell
Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949) was an American author, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for her epic novel Gone with the Wind, her only major publication. This novel is one of the most popular books of all time, selling more than 30 million copies (see list of best-selling books). The film adaptation of it, released in 1939, became the highest-grossing film in the history of Hollywood, and it received a record-breaking ten Academy Awards. Mitchell has been honored by the United States Postal Service with a 1¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.
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Marge Piercy
Marge Piercy (born 31 March 1936) is an American poet, novelist, and social activist.
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Marguerite Durand
Marguerite Durand (January 24, 1864 – March 16, 1936) was a French stage actress, journalist, and a leading suffragette.
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Marilyn Miller
Marilyn Miller (September 1, 1898 – April 7, 1936) was one of the most popular Broadway musical stars of the 1920s and early 1930s. She was an accomplished tap dancer, singer and actress, but it was the combination of these talents that endeared her to audiences. On stage she usually played rags-to-riches Cinderella characters who lived happily ever after. By contrast her personal life was marked by tragedy and illness, ending in her death at age 37.
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Marion Barry
Marion Shepilov Barry, Jr. (born March 6, 1936) is an American Democratic politician who served as the second elected mayor of the District of Columbia from 1979 to 1991, and again as the fourth mayor from 1995 to 1999. In the 1960s he was involved in the Civil Rights Movement and served as the first president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
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Mark Goddard
Mark Goddard (born July 24, 1936) is an American film actor who has starred in a number of television shows. He is most widely known for his role as Dr. Zachary Smith's (played by Jonathan Harris) long-suffering space partner and adversary, Major Don West, in the cult 1960s TV series, Lost in Space.
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Mary Millar
Mary Millar (26 July 1936 – 10 November 1998) was a British actress best remembered for her role as Rose in BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances. She was born Mary Wetton in Doncaster, Yorkshire
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Mary Tyler Moore
Mary Tyler Moore (born December 29, 1936) is an American actress, primarily known for her roles in television sitcoms.
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Masako Nozawa
(October 25, 1936), born in the Tokyo Metropolitan area, Japan, but raised in Numata, Gunma, is a seiyū and actress affiliated with (and the chairman of) Office Nozawa. Her pet name is Mako. Her husband, Masa'aki Tsukada is also a voice actor.
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Max Schmeling
Maximillian Adolph Otto Siegfried Schmeling (September 28, 1905 – October 2, 2005) was a German boxer who was heavyweight champion of the world between 1930 and 1932. His two fights with Joe Louis in the late 1930s transcended boxing, and became worldwide social events because of their national associations. He was ranked 55 on Ring Magazine's list of 100 greatest punchers of all time.
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Maxim Gorky
Aleksey Maximovich Peshkov ( or Пешко́в) ( – 18 June 1936), better known as Maxim Gorky (Макси́м Го́рький), was a Russian/Soviet author, a founder of the socialist realism literary method and a political activist.
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Michael Landon
Michael Landon (October 31, 1936 – July 1, 1991) was an American actor, writer, director, and producer, who starred in three popular NBC TV series that spanned three decades. He is widely known for his roles as Little Joe Cartwright in Bonanza (1959–1973), Charles Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie (1974–1983), and Jonathan Smith in Highway to Heaven (1984–1989). Landon appeared on the cover of TV Guide twenty-two times, second only to Lucille Ball (TV Guide, July 6, 1991). His twenty-eight years of full-hour television acting surpasses that of TV legends Lucille Ball and James Arness.
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Mickey Gilly
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Mordecai Ham
Mordecai Fowler Ham, Jr. (April 2, 1877–November 1, 1961), was an American Independent Baptist evangelist and temperance movement leader. He entered the ministry in 1901 and in 1936 began a radio broadcast reaching into seven southern states. Early in his ministry, he was anchored as the pastor of Burton Memorial Baptist Church in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
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Moussa Traore
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Norman Chaney
Norman Myers Chaney (1 November 1914 - 29 May 1936) was an American child actor, notable for appearing in the Our Gang comedies as "'Chubby"' from 1929 to 1931. His state death certificate states May 29, 1936, although other unofficial sources may differ.
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Oscar Asche
John Stange(r) Heiss Oscar Asche (26 January 1871 – 23 March 1936), better known as Oscar Asche, was an Australian actor, director and writer, best known for having written, directed, and acted in the record-breaking musical Chu Chin Chow, both on stage and film, and for acting in, directing, or producing many Shakespeare plays and successful musicals.
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Oswald Spengler
Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler (29 May 1880 – 8 May 1936) was a German historian and philosopher whose interests also included mathematics, science, and art. He is best known for his book The Decline of the West (Der Untergang des Abendlandes), published in 1918, which puts forth a cyclical theory of the rise and decline of civilizations. In 1920 Spengler produced Prussiandom and Socialism (Preussentum und Sozialismus), which argued for an organic, nationalist version of socialism and authoritarianism. He wrote extensively throughout World War I and the interwar period, and supported German hegemony in Europe. The National Socialists held Spengler as an intellectual precursor but he was ostracised after 1933 for his pessimism about Germany and Europe's future, his refusal to support Nazi ideas of racial superiority, and his critical work The Hour of Decision.
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Otto Loewi
Otto Loewi (June 3, 1873 – December 25, 1961) was a German pharmacologist whose discovery of acetylcholine helped enhance medical therapy. The discovery earned for him the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1936 which he shared with Sir Henry Dale. He has been referred to as the "Father of Neuroscience."
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Ottorino Respighi
Ottorino Respighi (; July 9, 1879, Bologna - April 18, 1936) was an Italian composer, musicologist and conductor. He is best known for his orchestral Roman trilogy: Fontane di Roma - "Fountains of Rome"; Pini di Roma - "Pines of Rome"; and Feste Romane - "Roman Festivals". His musicological interest in 16th-, 17th- and 18th-century music led him to also compose pieces based on the music of this period.
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Patty Maloney
Patricia Anne "Patty" Maloney (born March 17, 1936) is an American actress with dwarfism.
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Paul Zindel
Paul Zindel Jr. (15 May 1936 – 27 March 2003) was an American playwright, author, and educator.
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Peter Debye
Peter Joseph William Debye (March 24, 1884 – November 2, 1966) was a Dutch physicist and physical chemist, and Nobel laureate in Chemistry.
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Rainey Bethea
Rainey Bethea (c. 1909 – August 14, 1936) was the last person to be publicly executed in the United States. Bethea, who was black, confessed to the rape and murder of a 70-year-old white woman named Lischia Edwards, and after being convicted of her rape, he was publicly hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky. Mistakes in executing the hanging and the surrounding media circus contributed to the end of public executions in the United States.
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Robert Barnard
Robert Barnard (born 23 November 1936) is an English crime writer, critic and lecturer.
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Robert Bárány
Robert Bárány (22 April 1876 – 8 April 1936) was a Austrian otologist. For his work on the physiology and pathology of the vestibular apparatus of the ear he received the 1914 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
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Robert E. Howard
Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 – June 11, 1936) was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. Best known for his character Conan the Barbarian, he is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre.
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Robert Gnaizda
Robert Gnaizda (, ) is retired co-founder, General Counsel and Policy Director for the Greenlining Institute based in Berkeley, California. A graduate of Columbia College of Columbia University and Yale Law School, he has been known as an advocate of social justice for over 40 years.
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Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford Jr. (born August 18, 1936), better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, model, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime Achievement in 2002.
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Roger Mahony
Roger Michael Mahony (born February 27, 1936) is an American cardinal in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church. He is the fourth and current Archbishop of Los Angeles and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1991.
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Roger Miller
Roger Dean Miller (January 2, 1936 – October 25, 1992) was an American singer, songwriter, musician and actor, best known for his honky tonk-influenced novelty songs. His most recognized tunes included the chart-topping country/pop hits "King of the Road", "Dang Me" and "England Swings", all from the mid-1960s Nashville sound era.
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Ronald Venetiaan
Ronald Runaldo Venetiaan (born June 18, 1936) is a mathematician, and was the 6th and 8th President of Suriname. His served his first term as president from 1991 to 1996, but he lost presidential elections to Jules Wijdenbosch. In 2000 he won them again, on the New Front banner, receiving 37 out of 51 votes in the Parliament.
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Rose Bird
Rose Elizabeth Bird (November 2, 1936–December 4, 1999) served for 10 years as the 25th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of California. She was the first female Justice, and first female Chief Justice, on that court. In the November 1986 state election she also became the first Californian Chief Justice to be removed from office by the voters .
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Roy Emerson
Roy Stanley Emerson (born November 3, 1936) is an Australian former tennis player who won 12 Grand Slam singles titles and 16 Grand Slam men's doubles titles. He is the only male player to have won singles and doubles titles at all four Grand Slam tournaments. His 28 Grand Slam titles are an all-time record for a male player. Most of his titles were won in the final years of the period where the Grand Slam events were open only to amateur players, just before the start of the open era when professionals were admitted into tennis's most prestigious events. Roy Emerson is the first male player to win each Grand Slam title at least twice in his career. In the history of tennis, only Margaret Court achieved this feat before Emerson.
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Roy Orbison
Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988) was an American singer-songwriter and musician, well known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly / country & western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis. His greatest success came with Monument Records in the early to mid 1960s when 22 of his songs placed on the US Billboard Top Forty, including "Only the Lonely", "Crying", "In Dreams", and "Oh, Pretty Woman". His career stagnated through the 1970s, but several covers of his songs and the use of one in a film by David Lynch revived his career in the 1980s. In 1988, he joined the supergroup The Traveling Wilburys with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne and also released a new solo album. He died of a heart attack in December that year, at the zenith of his resurgence. His life was marred with tragedy, including the death of his first wife and two of his children in separate accidents.
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Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was a British author and poet. Born in Bombay, in British India, he is best known for his works of fiction The Jungle Book (1894) (a collection of stories which includes Rikki-Tikki-Tavi), Kim (1901) (a tale of adventure), many short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King (1888); and his poems, including Mandalay (1890), Gunga Din (1890), and If— (1910). He is regarded as a major "innovator in the art of the short story"; his children's books are enduring classics of children's literature; and his best works are said to exhibit "a versatile and luminous narrative gift".
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Russ Jackson
Russell Stanley "Russ" Jackson, OC (born July 28, 1936 in Hamilton, Ontario) is a former professional Canadian football quarterback. Jackson spent his entire 12-year professional football career with the Ottawa Rough Riders of the Canadian Football League. He is a member of the Order of Canada, the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, and Canada's Sports Hall of Fame, and has been described as the best Canadian-born quarterback to play in the CFL. In 2006, Jackson was voted one of the CFL's Top 50 players (#8) of the league's modern era by Canadian sports network TSN, the highest-ranked Canadian-born player on the list.
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Ruta Lee
Ruta Lee (born May 30, 1936) is a Canadian actress and dancer who appeared as one of the brides in the film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. She is also known for her guest appearance in The Twilight Zone in 1959, and for being a semi-regular on a number of game shows, including the Hollywood Squares, ''What's My Line?'', and as Alex Trebek's co-host on High Rollers.
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Ruth Buzzi
Ruth Ann Buzzi (born July 24, 1936) is an American comedienne and actress of theatre, film, and television. She is especially known for her performances on the comedy-variety show ''Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In'' from 1968 to 1973.
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Sam Myers
Sam Myers (February 19, 1936 – July 17, 2006) was an American blues musician and songwriter. He appeared as an accompanist on dozens of recordings for blues artists over the past five decades, and fronted one of the top blues bands in the world. He began his career as a drummer for Elmore James but was most famous as a blues vocalist and blues harp player. Myers was in high demand for his authentic delta blues sound. For nearly two decades he was the featured vocalist for Anson Funderburgh & The Rockets.
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Sepp Blatter
Joseph S. Blatter (born 10 March 1936) is President of FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association). He was elected on 8 June 1998, succeeding João Havelange.
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Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev () (5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and came to be admired as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century.
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Shelley Morrison
Shelley Morrison (born October 26, 1936) is an American actress. Early in her career, she was sometimes credited as Rachel Domínguez. Morrison has been a theater and television actress since the early 1960s, predominantly as a character actress in ethnic roles. Her most recognizable role has been as the maid Rosario Salazar in the NBC comedy television series Will & Grace, which she played from 1999 to 2006. She was a regular performer on the sitcom The Flying Nun playing Sister Sixto, and she continued in television guest roles until securing a recurring role in the soap opera General Hospital in 1982. She has been called a non-Hispanic but is actually a Sephardic Jew of Spanish descent.
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Shigeo Nagashima
is a Japanese former professional baseball player and manager.
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Shirley Knight
Shirley Enola Knight (born July 5, 1936) is an American stage, screen, and television actress. She has been nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, in 1960 for The Dark at the Top of the Stairs and in 1962 for Sweet Bird of Youth.
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Silvio Berlusconi
(born 29 September 1936 in Milan) is an Italian politician, the current Prime Minister of Italy, as well as a successful entrepreneur. He is the second longest-serving Prime Minister of Italy, a position he has held on three separate occasions: from 1994 to 1995, from 2001 to 2006 and currently since 2008. Technically, Berlusconi has been sworn in four times because after a cabinet reshuffle, as happened with Berlusconi in 2005, the new ministry is sworn in and subjected to a vote of confidence. He is the leader of the People of Freedom political movement, a centre-right party he founded in 2009. As of November 2009, he is the longest-serving current leader of a G8 country. As of 2010, Forbes magazine has ranked him as the 74th richest man in the world with a net worth of USD 9 billion.
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Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War was a major conflict that devastated Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939. It began after an attempted ''coup d'état by a group of Spanish Army generals against the government of the Second Spanish Republic, then under the leadership of president Manuel Azaña. The nationalist coup was supported by the conservative Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas, or C.E.D.A), monarchists known as Carlist groups, and the Fascist Falange (Falange Española de las J.O.N.S.''). Following the partially successful coup, Spain was left divided as supporters of the existing Republican government fought the forces of the new Nationalist government for control of the country. The war ended with the victory of the Nationalists, the overthrow of the Republican government, and the founding of an authoritarian state led by General Francisco Franco. In the aftermath of the civil war, all right-wing parties were fused into the state party of the Franco regime.
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Stella Stevens
Stella Stevens (born October 1, 1936 as Estelle Caro Eggleston) is an American film, television and stage actress, who began her acting career in 1959. She is a film producer, director and pin-up girl.
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Stephen Ambrose
Stephen Edward Ambrose (January 10, 1936 – October 13, 2002) was an American historian and biographer of U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. He was a long time professor of history at the University of New Orleans and the author of many best selling volumes of American popular history. Beginning late in his life and continuing after his death, however, many reports and evidence have continued to surface documenting long time patterns of plagiarism, falsification, and inaccuracies in many of his published writings and other work. In response to one of the early reports, Ambrose said he was not "out there stealing other people's writings."
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Sue Ane Langdon
Sue Ane Langdon (born March 8, 1936) is a retired American actress.
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Tammany Young
Tammany Young (September 9, 1886 – April 26, 1936) was an American stage and film actor, who appeared with W.C. Fields in seven films.
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Teddy Infuhr
Teddy Infuhr (born Theodore Edward Infuhr, November 9, 1936 – May 12, 2007) was an American child actor.
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Thomas Jefferson
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Thomas Meighan
Thomas Meighan (April 9, 1879 - July 8, 1936) was an American actor of silent films and early talkies. He played several leading man roles opposite popular actresses of the day including Mary Pickford and Gloria Swanson. At one point he commanded $10,000 a week.
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Tom McAvoy
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Tom Robbins
Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins (born July 22, 1936) is an American author. His novels are abstract, often wild stories with strong social undercurrents, a satirical bent, and obscure details. He is probably best known for his novel Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976), which was made into a movie in 1993 directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Uma Thurman and Keanu Reeves.
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Tom Snyder
Thomas James "Tom" Snyder (May 12, 1936 – July 29, 2007) was an American television personality, news anchor and radio personality best known for his late night talk shows The Tomorrow Show, on the NBC television network in the 1970s and 1980s, and The Late Late Show, on the CBS Television Network in the 1990s.
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Tom T. Hall
Tom T. Hall (born May 25, 1936, in Olive Hill, Kentucky) is an American country balladeer, songwriter, and country singer. He has written 11 #1 hit songs, with 26 more that reached the Top 10, including the pop crossover hit "I Love", which reached #12 on the Billboard Hot 100.
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Tony Lo Bianco
Tony Lo Bianco (born October 19, 1936) is an American actor in films and television.
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Ursula Andress
Ursula Andress (born March 19, 1936) is a Swiss actress and a sex symbol of the 1960s. She is known for her roles as Bond girl Honey Ryder in Dr. No, for which she won a Golden Globe, and as Vesper Lynd in the 1967 James Bond parody Casino Royale.
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Uwe Seeler
Uwe Seeler (born 5 November 1936 in Hamburg) is a former German football official and retired football player. He played for Hamburger SV and also made 72 appearances for the West German national team.
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Victor F. Hess
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Václav Havel
Václav Havel () (born 5 October 1936 in Czechoslovakia) is a Czech playwright, essayist, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia (1989–92) and the first President of the Czech Republic (1993–2003). He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally. He has received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, the Order of Canada, the freedom medal of the Four Freedoms Award, and the Ambassador of Conscience Award. He was also voted 4th in Prospect Magazine's 2005 global poll of the world's top 100 intellectuals. He is a founding signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism.
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Walter Koenig
Walter Marvin Koenig (; born September 14, 1936) is an American actor, writer, teacher and director, known for his roles as Pavel Chekov in and Alfred Bester in Babylon 5. Most recently, he wrote the script for the 2008 sci-fi thriller / legal drama InAlienable.
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Wilhelm Gustloff
Wilhelm Gustloff (January 30, 1895 - February 4, 1936) was the German leader of the NSDAP (Nazi) party in Switzerland; he founded the Swiss branch of the party at Davos in 1932., which grouped Nazi party members who lived outside the German Reich.
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William Henry Stark
William Henry Stark (1851-1936) was an industrial leader whose contributions helped the city of Orange, Texas develop financially. Stark was the president of the Lutcher Moore Cypress Lumber Company of Lutcher, Louisiana.
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Wilt Chamberlain
Wilton Norman "Wilt" Chamberlain (August 21, 1936 – October 12, 1999) was an American professional NBA basketball player for the Philadelphia/San Francisco Warriors, the Philadelphia 76ers and the Los Angeles Lakers; he also played for the Harlem Globetrotters. The 7 foot 1 inch Chamberlain, who weighed 250 lbs as a rookie before bulking up to 275 lb and eventually over 300 lb with the Lakers, played the center position and is considered by his contemporaries as one of the greatest and most dominant players in the history of the NBA.
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Yasuo Fukuda
was the 58th Prime Minister of Japan, serving from 2007 to 2008. He was previously the longest-serving Chief Cabinet Secretary in Japanese history, serving for three and a half years (2000–2004) under Prime Ministers Yoshirō Mori and Junichiro Koizumi.
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Yuriy Luzhkov
http://wn.com/Yuriy_Luzhkov
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Addis Ababa
Addis Ababa (sometimes spelled Addis Abeba, the spelling used by the official Ethiopian Mapping Authority) is the capital city of Ethiopia. (In Ethiopian languages: Amharic, Addis Abäba "new flower"; Oromo, Finfinne; Ge'ez ኣዲስ ኣበባ) It is the largest city in Ethiopia, with a population of 3,384,569 according to the 2007 population census.
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Akita Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku Region of northern Honshū, the main island of Japan. The capital is the city of Akita.
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Austria
Austria or (), officially the Republic of Austria (German: ), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers and has a temperate and alpine climate. Austria's terrain is highly mountainous due to the presence of the Alps; only 32% of the country is below , and its highest point is . The majority of the population speaks German, which is also the country's official language. Other local official languages are Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene.
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Azerbaijan SSR
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Berlin
Berlin (; ) is the capital city of Germany and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union. Located in northeastern Germany, it is the center of the Berlin-Brandenburg Metropolitan Area, comprising 5 million people from over 190 nations. Geographically embedded in the European Plains, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one third of the city's territory is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers and lakes.
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California
California (pronounced ) is the most populous state in the United States and the third-largest by land area, after Alaska and Texas. California is also the most populous sub-national entity in North America. It's on the U.S. West Coast, bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the west and by the states of Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, Baja California, Mexico, to the south. Its 5 largest cities are Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, and Long Beach, with Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Jose each having at least 1 million residents. Like many populous states, California's capital, Sacramento is smaller than the state's largest city, Los Angeles. The state is home to the nation's 2nd- and 6th-largest census statistical areas and 8 of the nation's 50 most populous cities. California has a varied climate and geography and a multi-cultural population.
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Canada
Canada () is a country in North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean. It is the world's second largest country by total area. Canada's common border with the United States to the south and northwest is the longest in the world.
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Chicago
Chicago ( or ) is the largest city in the state of Illinois. With over 2.8 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous city in the country. Its metropolitan area, commonly named "Chicagoland," is the 26th most populous in the world, home to an estimated 9.7 million people spread across the U.S. states of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana. Chicago is the county seat of Cook County.
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China
China is seen variously as an ancient civilization extending over a large area in East Asia, a nation and/or a multinational entity.
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Egypt
Egypt (; , Miṣr, ; Egyptian Arabic: مصر, Maṣr, ; Coptic: , ; Greek: Αίγυπτος, Aiguptos; Egyptian:
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Eritrea
Eritrea ( or ; Ge'ez: , Arabic: إرتريا Iritrīyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the North East of Africa. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast. The east and northeast of the country have an extensive coastline on the Red Sea, directly across from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The Dahlak Archipelago and several of the Hanish Islands are part of Eritrea. Its size is just under with an estimated population of 5 million.
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Ethiopia
{{Infobox country
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Flint, Michigan
Flint is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and is located along the Flint River, 66 miles (106 km) northwest of Detroit. As of the 2000 census, the city had a population of 124,943. The 2009 Census Bureau Estimate places the population at 111,475, making Flint the seventh largest city in Michigan. It is the county seat of Genesee County which lies in the Flint/Tri-Cities region of Michigan. Genesee County is also the entirety of Flint's metropolitan area, the fourth largest metropolitan area in Michigan.
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Gainesville, Georgia
Gainesville is a city in and the county seat of Hall County, Georgia, United States. The population was 25,579 at the 2000 census. Because of its large number of poultry processing plants, it is often called the chicken capital of the world. Gainesville is also known for its chicken processing facilities, such as King's Delight and Mar-Jac. Gainesville is the principal city of and is included in the Gainesville, Georgia Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Gainesville, Georgia-Alabama (part) Combined Statistical Area.
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Germany
Germany (), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (, ), is a country in Western Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The territory of Germany covers 357.021 km2 and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 81.8 million inhabitants, it is the most populous member state of the European Union, and home to the third-largest number of international migrants worldwide.
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Irish Free State
The Irish Free State () (1922–1937) was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand. On the day the Irish Free State was established, it comprised the entire island of Ireland, but Northern Ireland almost immediately exercised its right under the Treaty to opt out of the new state. The Irish Free State effectively replaced the self-proclaimed Irish Republic (itself established on 21 January 1919). Similarly, the new government of the Irish Free State replaced both the Provisional Government of Southern Ireland and the Government of the Irish Republic although W. T. Cosgrave, the first President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State had, in any event, led both governments since August 1922.
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Italy
Italy (; ), officially the Italian Republic (), is a country located in south-central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia along the Alps. To the south it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia — the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea — and many other smaller islands. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy, whilst Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers some and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60.4 million inhabitants, it is the sixth most populous country in Europe, and the twenty-third most populous in the world.
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Japan
Japan (日本 Nihon or Nippon), officially the State of Japan ( or Nihon-koku), is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin" (because it lies to the east of nearby countries), which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun".
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London
London () is the capital of England and the United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its founding by the Romans, who called it Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, largely retains its square-mile mediaeval boundaries. Since at least the 19th century, the name London has also referred to the metropolis developed around this core. The bulk of this conurbation forms the London region and the Greater London administrative area, governed by the elected Mayor of London and the London Assembly.
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Michigan
Michigan () is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is a French corruption of the Ojibwe word mishigama, meaning "large water" or "large lake".
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Mississippi
Mississippi () is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, which namesake is from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi ("Great River"). The state is heavily forested outside of the Mississippi Delta area, and its catfish aquaculture farms produce the majority of farm-raised catfish consumed in the United States. The state symbol is the magnolia grandiflora tree.
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Moscow
Moscow ( or ; ; see also ) is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a global city. Moscow is the most populous city on the continent of Europe and the seventh largest city proper in the world, a megacity. The population of Moscow (as of 1 January 2010) is 10,563,038.
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Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, is the common name for the country of Germany while governed by Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) from 1933 to 1945. Third Reich () denotes the Nazi state as a historical successor to the medieval Holy Roman Empire (962–1806) and to the modern German Empire (1871–1918). Nazi Germany had two official names, the Deutsches Reich (German Reich), from 1933 to 1943, when it became Großdeutsches Reich (Greater German Reich).
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New Jersey
New Jersey (, ) is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. It is bordered on the northeast by New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware. New Jersey lies largely within the sprawling metropolitan areas of New York City and Philadelphia. It is the most densely populated state in the United States.
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Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish and Norwegian: Nobels fredspris) is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.
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North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state located on the Atlantic Seaboard in the Southern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte. North Carolina is now ranked as one of the top 3 leading States for Green Technology, Bio-Chemical Engineering, Medical Sciences, and Computer Engineering through the long-range research and development programs of Research Triangle Park (RTP), UNC Chapel Hill, and North Carolina State .
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Owensboro, Kentucky
Owensboro is the third largest city by population in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It is the county seat of Daviess County. It is located on U.S. Route 60 about southeast of Evansville, Indiana and is the principal city of the Owensboro, Kentucky Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 55,745 at the 2009 U.S. Census Estimate. The city was named after Colonel Abraham Owen. Owensboro is the second-largest city in the Tri-State region of Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky after Evansville, Indiana.
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Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania () is a U.S. state and Commonwealth located in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to the east. The state's four most populous cities are Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown and Erie. The state capital is Harrisburg.
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Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh () is the second-largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it anchors the 22nd largest urban area in the United States. The estimated population of the city in 2009 was 311,647, while the seven-county metropolitan area was estimated at 2,354,957. Downtown Pittsburgh retains substantial economic influence, ranking at 25th in the nation for jobs within the urban core and 6th in job density. The characteristic shape of Pittsburgh's central business district is a triangular tract carved by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, where the Ohio River forms. The city features 151 high-rise buildings, 446 bridges, two inclined railways, and a pre-revolutionary fortification. Pittsburgh is known colloquially as "The City of Bridges" and "The Steel City" for its many bridges and former steel manufacturing base.
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Rome
Rome (; , ; ) is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . In 2006 the population of the metropolitan area was estimated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to have a population of 3.7 million.
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Sing Sing
Sing Sing Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison of the New York State Department of Correctional Services in the Town of Ossining, New York. It is located approximately 30 miles (50 km) north of New York City along the banks of the Hudson River. Ossining's original name, "Sing Sing", came from the Native American Sinck Sinck (Sint Sinck) tribe from whom the land was purchased in 1685.
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Southampton
Southampton () is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest. It lies at the northernmost point of Southampton Water at the confluence of the River Test and River Itchen, with the River Hamble joining to the south of the urban area. The local authority is Southampton City Council, which is a unitary authority.
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Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, , abbreviated СССР, SSSR), informally known as the Soviet Union () or Soviet Russia, was a constitutionally socialist state that existed on the territory of most of the former Russian Empire in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.
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the Crystal Palace
http://wn.com/the_Crystal_Palace -
Toledo, Ohio
Toledo is the fourth most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Lucas County. The municipality is located in northwest Ohio on the western end of Lake Erie, and borders the State of Michigan. The city was founded in 1833 on the west bank of the Maumee River, originally incorporated as part of Monroe County, Michigan Territory; then re-founded in 1837, after conclusion of theToledo War, when it was incorporated in Ohio. Toledo grew quickly as a result of the Miami and Erie Canal and its position on the railway line between New York and Chicago. It has since become a city well known for its industry, particularly in glass and auto assembly (Jeep headquarters and related auto parts production), as well as for its art community, education, and local sports teams.
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Tupelo, Mississippi
Tupelo () is the largest city in and the county seat of Lee County, Mississippi, United States. It is the seventh largest city in the state of Mississippi, smaller than Meridian, and larger than Greenville. The Tupelo area — specifically the nearby village of Blue Springs — was selected during the spring of 2007 as the site for Toyota's eleventh U.S. automobile manufacturing plant. As of the 2000 United States Census, the city's population was 34,211. By 2008, the population was 36,223, with a metropolitan area population of 134,161, encompassing Lee, Pontotoc and Itawamba counties. The city is best known as the birthplace of Elvis Presley Situated in northeast Mississippi, the city lies between Memphis, Tennessee, and Birmingham, Alabama, along U.S. Highway 78 — slated to become Interstate 22 within a few years.
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UK
http://wn.com/UK -
Ukraine
Ukraine ( ; , transliterated: , ), with its area of 603,628 km2, is the second largest country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by the Russian Federation to the east and northeast, Belarus to the northwest, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west, Romania and Moldova to the southwest, and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south and southeast respectively.
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United States
The United States of America (also referred to as the United States, the U.S., the USA, or America) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Caribbean and Pacific.
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Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is considered part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Upper Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is Madison, and its largest city is Milwaukee. As of 2009 the state has an estimated 5.6 million residents. The state contains 72 counties.
http://wn.com/Wisconsin
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- Sergei Prokofiev
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- Sing Sing
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- Stress (medicine)
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Breakdowns of 1936
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:37
- Published: 13 Sep 2008
- Uploaded: 29 Jan 2012
- Author: nicoley132
The Warner Bros. annual blooper reel for 1936. Featuring Humphrey Bogart, Joe E. Brown, James Cagney, Bette Davis, Kay Francis, Leslie Howard, Paul Lukas, Barton MacLane, Fredric March, Paul Muni, Pat O'Brien, Claude Rains, Edward G. Robinson, Warren William, etc.
http://wn.com/Breakdowns_of_1936
1936 Nazi Color Film-Berlin in the Year of the Olympic Games
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 8:25
- Published: 27 Jul 2007
- Uploaded: 07 Feb 2012
- Author: UnknownWW2InColor
www.romanoarchives.tk Nazi propaganda complete color film from 1936. An outstanding portrait of daily life in Berlin in this rare, well preserved film, with the magical feeling of the pastel colors of Agfachrome. Strangely, it appears that parts of this documentary were filmed in 1939, after the Siegessäule was moved to it's new location. (Thanks to friend youtuber Gumbypotty.) Original soundtrack. No subtitles.Editing by ROMANO-ARCHIVES. "SUBSCRIBING to this Channel is a MUST for researchers and RARE HISTORICAL FOOTAGE fans!!!" V. Romano This is a movie from the ROMANO-ARCHIVES' new website-"Unknown World War 2 in Color"-"The Pre-War Years" section. At www.webalice.it Visit also: romanoarchives.altervista.org Or: digilander.libero.it A better quality version of this film is available. Hi-Res videos from our Collections are available on DVD, CD or directly in your inbox. Clips and movies can also be downloaded from our servers using a PW or uploaded by us to your FTP.
http://wn.com/1936_Nazi_Color_Film-Berlin_in_the_Year_of_the_Olympic_Games
Mickey Mouse Cartoon - The Moving Day (1936) (Co-starring Donald and Goofy)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:25
- Published: 12 Aug 2008
- Uploaded: 09 Feb 2012
- Author: fireurgunz
This classic Mickey, Donald and Goofy cartoon depicts the three in a bind and they need to move before their furniture is auctioned off. Unfortunately for them their furniture doesn't want to leave and the results are hillarious! Date: Sunday June 14 2009: 1001268 views (Thanks EVERYONE!) Monday July 5 2010 6339454 views (WOW!!!! Thanks to everyone around the world for supporting classic Disney!) Sunday May 1 2011 15501538 views (GO CLASSIC DISNEY!!!) Be sure to check out my channel for MORE Disney!!! :D (C) Disney If you are the owner or the lawyer of the owner of this film, please contact me before Flagging the video. This is merely for promoting the film to the public.
http://wn.com/Mickey_Mouse_Cartoon__The_Moving_Day_1936_Co-starring_Donald_and_Goofy
jesse owens 1936 olympics adolf hitler
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:30
- Published: 30 Jan 2008
- Uploaded: 09 Feb 2012
- Author: micbec2007
jesse owens 1936 olimpics wins gold
http://wn.com/jesse_owens_1936_olympics_adolf_hitler
Paul Robeson - Ol' Man River (Showboat - 1936) J.Kern O. Hammerstein II
From Showboat's 2nd version (1936) Paul Robeson - Ol' Man River Ol' Man River (Jerome Kern - Oscar Hammerstein II) Lyrics from the Original Libretto Dare's an ol' man cal'd de Mississipi Dat's de ol' man dat I'd lek to be Whot does he care iv de world gets trauble Whot does he care iv de land lev's free. Ol' man river, Dat ol' man river He mus'know sumpin' But don't say nuthin', He jes'keeps rollin' He keeps on rollin' along. He don' plant taters, He don't plant cotton, An' dem dat plants'em is soon forgotten, But ol'man river, He jes keeps rollin'along. You an'me, we sweat an' strain, Body all achin' an' racket wid pain, Tote dat barge! Lif' dat bale! You gits a little drunk An' you lands in jail. Ah gits weary An' sick of tryin' Ah'm tired of livin' An' skeered of dyin', But ol' man river, He jes'keeps rolling' along. [Colored folks work on de Mississippi, Colored folks work while de white folks play, Pullin' dose boats from de dawn to sunset, Gittin' no rest till de judgement day. Don't look up An' don't look down, You don' dast make De white boss frown. Bend your knees An'bow your head, An' pull date rope Until you' dead.) Let me go 'way from the Mississippi, Let me go 'way from de white man boss; Show me dat stream called de river Jordan, Dat's de ol' stream dat I long to cross. O' man river, Dat ol' man river, He mus'know sumpin' But don't say nuthin' He jes' keeps rollin' He keeps on rollin' along. (Long ol' river forever keeps rollin' on...) He don' plant tater <b>...</b>
http://wn.com/Paul_Robeson__Ol'_Man_River_Showboat__1936_JKern_O_Hammerstein_II
Smile, Charlie Chaplin , Modern Times, 1936
Smile!
http://wn.com/Smile,_Charlie_Chaplin_,_Modern_Times,_1936
Berlin 1935 in Farbe
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 8:26
- Published: 16 Nov 2008
- Uploaded: 09 Feb 2012
- Author: rainerb1980
www.poker-nach-strategie.de
http://wn.com/Berlin_1935_in_Farbe
1936 Television song
From the film 'Television Comes to London', this song encapsulates the sense of wonder about this new technology, in a very British pre-war way! "A mighty maze of mystic magic rays is all about us in the gloom" indeed!
http://wn.com/1936_Television_song
Fascinating 1936 Footage of Car Assembly Line
Filmed in 1936 at the Chevrolet Plant in Flint, Michigan.
http://wn.com/Fascinating_1936_Footage_of_Car_Assembly_Line
Battle of Cable Street, 1936
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:14
- Published: 02 Oct 2006
- Uploaded: 04 Feb 2012
- Author: confrontandresist
News reel footage of the Battle of Cable Street in in 1936 where the Sir Oswald Mosely's Black Shirts were prevented from marching through the East End of London by anti-fascists.
http://wn.com/Battle_of_Cable_Street,_1936
Ceremonies In Bali 1936
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:49
- Published: 01 Jun 2008
- Uploaded: 22 Jan 2012
- Author: travelfilmarchive
An elaborate funeral ceremony in Bali in the 1930s. Transferred from an original 35mm nitrate print. Footage from this subject is available for licensing from www.gettyimages.com
http://wn.com/Ceremonies_In_Bali_1936
1936 Model Aircraft National Championship
Free flight model aircraft contest in 1936
http://wn.com/1936_Model_Aircraft_National_Championship
Master Hands (1936) Chevrolet Manufacturing
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 27:20
- Published: 11 Jun 2010
- Uploaded: 07 Feb 2012
- Author: USAutoIndustry
Classic "capitalist realist" drama showing the manufacture of Chevrolets from foundry to finished vehicles. Though ostensibly a tribute to the "master hands" of the assembly line workers, it seems more of a paean to the designers of this impressive mass production system. Filmed in Flint, Michigan, just months before the United Auto Workers won union recognition with their famous sitdown strikes. Selected for the 1999 National Film Registry of "artistically, culturally, and socially significant" films.
http://wn.com/Master_Hands_1936_Chevrolet_Manufacturing
Anarchists in the 1936 Spanish Civil War
Barcelona, 1936-1939
http://wn.com/Anarchists_in_the_1936_Spanish_Civil_War
Summertime -- Billie Holiday 1936
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:57
- Published: 22 Jun 2008
- Uploaded: 09 Feb 2012
- Author: erwigaudio
Summertime -- Billie Holiday 1936 Summertime was a tune from the opera Porgy and Bess that had openend only some 9 months before this recording was made. Even today, some 72 years later, the tune is still a favourite standard, but Billie's was probably the greatest version ever made. Billie and her Orchestra with Bunny Berigan trumpet, Artie Shaw clarinet, Joe Bushkin piano, Dick McDonough guitar, Pete Peterson bass and Cozy Cole drums.
http://wn.com/Summertime_-_Billie_Holiday_1936
FDR 1936 I welcome their hatred
Extract from famous 1936 speech in Madison square garden. That was 72 years ago... "For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent. For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up. We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace‹business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me‹and I welcome their hatred."
http://wn.com/FDR_1936_I_welcome_their_hatred
Dennis Hopper, 1936-2010
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:18
- Published: 29 May 2010
- Uploaded: 09 Dec 2011
- Author: AssociatedPress
Dennis Hopper, the high-flying Hollywood wild man whose memorable and erratic career included an improbable smash with "Easy Rider" and a classic character role in "Blue Velvet," has died. He was 74. (May 29)
http://wn.com/Dennis_Hopper,_1936-2010
Robert Johnson - Kind Hearted Woman Blues (1936)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:18
- Published: 26 Dec 2009
- Uploaded: 09 Feb 2012
- Author: LEDmad1962
This Song contains the only guitar solo Robert Johnson ever recorded. I very good example for his amazing talent. He plays rhythm and lead guitar on one instrument and at the same time. Here are the both takes remains to that day.
http://wn.com/Robert_Johnson__Kind_Hearted_Woman_Blues_1936
Mieczysław Fogg - Ostatnia niedziela, 1936
The „Last Sunday" -- erroneously called „THAT Last Sunday" -- was composed by Jerzy Petersburski in 1936. It is a nostalgic tango with lyrics by Zenon Friedwald describing the final meeting of former lovers who are parting. The Polish title was "To Ostatnia Niedziela" ("The Last Sunday"). The song was extremely popular and was performed by numerous artists (best kown performance by Mieczysław Folg). Along the way, it first gained the nick-name of "Suicide Tango" due to its sad lyric (although, the real „suicie song" in the night restaurants of Eastern Europe -- where the shoot in the brow at 12 at night was not any unusual happening - was In 1930s another sad „Sunday": the „Gloomy Sunday" (in Polish: „Smutna niedziela") by a Hungarian composer Rezső Seress. (Soon, an international hit; in the US sung by Billie Holiday). But this Polish „Last Sunday" song also had a terribly sad fate. During World War II In the concentrations camps it was often played while Jewish prisoners were led to the gas chambers and ovens, to be executed. During World War II its Russian version was prepared by Iosif Alveg and performed by Leonid Utyosov under the title of "Weary Sun" (Russian: "Utomlyennoye Solntse"). After World War II, the song remained largely successful and appeared in a number of films, including Yuriy Norshteyn's 1979 "Tale of Tales" (considered by many international critics to be the greatest animated film ever made), the award-winning Krzysztof Kieślowski's "White" (1994 <b>...</b>
http://wn.com/Mieczysław_Fogg__Ostatnia_niedziela,_1936
Schutzhund in Germany 1936
Schutzhund in het Duitsland van 1936.
http://wn.com/Schutzhund_in_Germany_1936
Night Mail - (1936) - Part 1
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:01
- Published: 02 Jun 2008
- Uploaded: 08 Feb 2012
- Author: st3v3nd0wd
"Night Mail is a 1936 documentary film about a London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) mail train from London to Scotland, produced by the GPO Film Unit. A poem by English poet WH Auden was specially written for it, as was music by Benjamin Britten.
http://wn.com/Night_Mail__1936__Part_1
Judy Garland / Deanna Durbin - Every Sunday 1936
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:28
- Published: 12 Sep 2007
- Uploaded: 08 Feb 2012
- Author: gethappyConor
Judy Garland's first appearence before an MGM camera with Deanna Durbin.
http://wn.com/Judy_Garland_/_Deanna_Durbin__Every_Sunday_1936
Creative Commons / Darryl Bishop
US Library of Congress / Dorothea Lange
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Creative Commons![Veritas ca 1853. From plaster original at the Crystal Palace Sydenham [destroyed 1936]](http://web.archive.org./web/20120221222129im_/http://cdn6.wn.com/pd/88/77/f4e314717a20b88dd0ec7c86569d_small.jpg "Veritas ca 1853. From plaster original at the Crystal Palace Sydenham [destroyed 1936]")
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Creative Commons / Au890![Ex-US Navy C-117D of Kenn Borek Air at Calgary Airport in 1996. American Airlines inaugurated passenger service on June 26, 1936, with simultaneous flights from Newark, N.J. and Chicago, IL.[6] Early U.S. airlines like American, United, TWA and Eastern ordered over 400 DC-3s.](http://web.archive.org./web/20120221222129im_/http://cdn5.wn.com/pd/cb/9b/4c069258454f4f2d7b0e98336351_small.jpg "Ex-US Navy C-117D of Kenn Borek Air at Calgary Airport in 1996. American Airlines inaugurated passenger service on June 26, 1936, with simultaneous flights from Newark, N.J. and Chicago, IL.[6] Early U.S. airlines like American, United, TWA and Eastern ordered over 400 DC-3s.")
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![Veritas ca 1853. From plaster original at the Crystal Palace Sydenham [destroyed 1936]](http://web.archive.org./web/20120221222129/http://cdn0.wn.com/pd/88/77/f4e314717a20b88dd0ec7c86569d_medium.jpg "Veritas ca 1853. From plaster original at the Crystal Palace Sydenham [destroyed 1936]")
![Ex-US Navy C-117D of Kenn Borek Air at Calgary Airport in 1996. American Airlines inaugurated passenger service on June 26, 1936, with simultaneous flights from Newark, N.J. and Chicago, IL.[6] Early U.S. airlines like American, United, TWA and Eastern ordered over 400 DC-3s.](http://web.archive.org./web/20120221222129/http://cdn9.wn.com/pd/cb/9b/4c069258454f4f2d7b0e98336351_medium.jpg "Ex-US Navy C-117D of Kenn Borek Air at Calgary Airport in 1996. American Airlines inaugurated passenger service on June 26, 1936, with simultaneous flights from Newark, N.J. and Chicago, IL.[6] Early U.S. airlines like American, United, TWA and Eastern ordered over 400 DC-3s.")
photo: WN / Aruna Mirasdar
17 Feb 2012
MoreThe Coastal Commission permit for a 13,500-square-foot volleyball center tent on the east end of the Del Mar Fairgrounds ran out in 2008, but the tent is still in use. — Earnie Grafton The...
photo: Creative Commons / Metroskop / Benjamin Holler
11 Feb 2012
WASHINGTON - Carl Hartman had big ideas before he joined The Associated Press in 1944 and became a foreign correspondent. "I realized pretty early that I was not going to write the Great American...
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Shahryar (1936-2012)
14 Feb 2012
The Hindu
Akhlaq Mohammed Khan, better known as Shahryar, who breathed his last in Aligarh on Monday following a prolonged battle with cancer, straddled the worlds of pure and popular poetry with equal ease. As a lyricist, he courted fame and riches with the unforgettable lyrics of Umrao Jaan. As a poet, he...(size: 2.5Kb)
Black Power on TV: How "Soul Train" Host Don Cornelius (1936-2012) Reshaped Independent Black Media
13 Feb 2012
Democracy Now
Whitney Houston is just the latest cultural icon to pass away during this year’s Black History Month. On February 1, "Soul Train" host Don Cornelius was found dead at his home in Los Angeles, in what appeared to be a suicide. Cornelius brought black music and culture into...(size: 10.9Kb)
Gymnast who witnessed Hitler refusing to shake Jesse Owens' hand at 1936 Games to take ...
10 Feb 2012
The Daily Mail
As a gymnast at the closing ceremony of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin she witnessed one of the most notorious scenes in the Games’ history. Hildegard Fraser had just turned 13 and had no idea why Adolf Hitler had refused to shake the hand of black athlete Jesse Owens, who had just won four gold...(size: 11.4Kb)
Woman takes photograph of herself at fairground rifle range every year from 1936... so she ...
02 Feb 2012
The Daily Mail
It was probably a throw-away comment to get her to buy more rounds. But when a fairground worker told Ria van Dijk she was a good shot back in 1936, the then 16-year-old began documenting her shooting efforts on a yearly basis. Seventy-six years later the now 92-year-old from Tilburg,...(size: 8.0Kb)
The Columbus Dispatch
Celebrities Blog...(size: 4.7Kb)
Pittsburgh Tribune Review
In a cold wind on Friday morning, Lock Master Rick Greenwood stood on a platform at the Montgomery Dam on the Ohio River as a towboat pushed six coal barges into the chamber below. He...(size: 1.2Kb)
Denver Post
A historical marker in place since 1936 has been stolen from Colorado's Old Fort and Stockade in Colorado Springs. Colorado Springs Police believe the plaquewas stolen from 2818 W....(size: 1.2Kb)
Bob Brown, 1936-2012
19 Jan 2012
Chicago Tribune
High school referee Bob Brown officiated football and basketball games in Illinois and his native...(size: 0.6Kb)
__NOTOC__
Year 1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar.
January 4 – England celebrates its first ever win over the All Blacks in Rugby Union, in particular the 2 famous tries by "The Prince" HH Alexander Obolensky.
January 15 – The first building to be completely covered in glass is completed in Toledo, Ohio, for the Owens-Illinois Glass Company.
January 16 – Serial killer Albert Fish is executed in Sing Sing Prison.
January 20 – King George V of the United Kingdom dies. His eldest son succeeds to the throne, becoming Edward VIII. The title Prince of Wales is not used for another 22 years.
January 31 – ''The Green Hornet'' radio show debuts.
February – John Maynard Keynes' book ''The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money'' is published in the UK.
February 4 – Radium E. becomes the first radioactive element to be made synthetically.
February 6 – The IV Olympic Winter Games open in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
February 17 The first superhero to wear a skin-tight costume and mask, ''The Phantom'', makes his first appearance in U.S. newspapers.
February 26 – The Imperial Way Faction engineers a failed coup against the Japanese government; some politicians are killed.
February 29 – Emperor Hirohito orders the Japanese army to arrest 123 conspirators in Tokyo government offices; 19 of them are executed in July.
March 1 – Construction of Hoover Dam is completed.
March 7 – In violation of the Treaty of Versailles, Nazi Germany reoccupies the Rhineland.
March 9 – Pro-democratic militarist Keisuke Okada steps down as Prime Minister of Japan and is replaced by radical militarist Koki Hirota.
March 17–March 18 – St. Patrick's Day Flood: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, suffers the worst flooding in its history.
March 26 – The longest game in the history of the National Hockey League was played. The Montreal Maroons and Detroit Red Wings went scoreless until 16 and a half minutes into the sixth OT when Mud Bruneteau ends it at 2:25 in the morning. It would be the longest game until May 4, 2000.
April 3 – Bruno Richard Hauptmann, convicted of kidnapping and killing Charles Lindbergh III, is executed in New Jersey.
April 5 – A tornado hits Tupelo, Mississippi, killing 216 and injuring over 700 (the 4th deadliest tornado in U.S. history).
April 6 – Two tornadoes strike Gainesville, Georgia. The smaller tornado hits north Gainsville, the stronger tornado the west side of town. 203 die and 1,600 are injured in the 5th deadliest tornado in U.S. history.
April 11 – The first Butlins holiday camp opens at Skegness. It was officially opened by Amy Johnson from Hull, who was the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia.
April 19 – The 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine against the British government and opposition to Jewish immigration begins.
May 2 – ''Peter and the Wolf'', a Russian fairy tale of Sergei Prokofiev's composition, debuts at the Nezlobin Theater in Moscow, Soviet Union.
May 5 – Italian forces occupy Addis Ababa.
May 7 – Italy annexes Ethiopia.
May 9 – Italian East Africa is formed from the Italian territories of Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Italian Somaliland.
May 12 – The Santa Fe railroad in the United States inaugurates the all-Pullman ''Super Chief'' passenger train between Chicago, Illinois and Los Angeles, California.
May 25 – The Remington Rand strike of 1936–1937 begins, spawning the notorious "Mohawk Valley formula," a corporate plan for strikebreaking.
May 27
* The first flight by the Irish airline Aer Lingus takes place.
British luxury liner leaves Southampton on her maiden voyage across the Atlantic
May 30 – Margaret Mitchell's novel ''Gone with the Wind'' is first published.
June
* A major heat wave strikes North America; high temperature records are set and thousands die.
* The first production model PCC trolley car, built by St. Louis Car Company, is placed in service by Pittsburgh Railways.
June 7
* The general strike in France is ended by the Matignon Agreements.
* The Steel Workers Organizing Committee is founded in the United States.
June 15 – An army laboratory explodes in Estonia, killing 60.
June 19 – Max Schmeling knocks out Joe Louis in the 12th round of their heavyweight boxing match at Yankee Stadium in New York City.
June 26 – Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first fully-controllable helicopter, makes its maiden flight.
June 29 – United States Maritime Commission formed
July 11 – Triborough Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic.
July 13 – 14 – Peak of July 1936 heat wave: The U.S. states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana all set new state records for high temperature. At Mio in northern Michigan, it soars to 113°F (45°C).
July 17 – The Army of Africa launches a ''coup d'état'' against the Second Spanish Republic, beginning the Spanish Civil War.
August 1 – The 1936 Summer Olympics open in Berlin, Germany, and mark the first live television coverage of a sports event in world history.
August 3 – African-American athlete Jesse Owens wins the 100-meter dash at the Berlin Olympics.
August 14
* Rainey Bethea was hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky, in the last public execution in the United States
* 1936 Summer Olympics: The United States men's national basketball team wins the first Olympic basketball tournament in the final game over Canada, 19–8.
August 19 – The first of the Moscow Trials begins in the Soviet Union.
August 26 – Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 is signed.
August 30
* Ernest Nash flees Germany for Rome.
* President Franklin D. Roosevelt attends the dedication of Thomas Jefferson's head at Mount Rushmore.
September – Franco-Syrian Treaty of Independence (1936) is signed.
September 7 – The last known Tasmanian Tiger named Benjamin dies in Hobart Zoo in Tasmania.
October 11 – Earl Bascom, rodeo cowboy and artist, designs and builds Mississippi's first permanent rodeo arena at Columbia, Mississippi.
October 19 – H.R. Ekins, reporter for the ''New York World-Telegram'', wins a race to travel around the world on commercial airline flights, beating out Dorothy Kilgallen of the ''New York Journal'' and Leo Kieran of the ''New York Times''. The flight takes 18½ days.
October 25 – Rome-Berlin Axis is formed.
October 29 – The historic Uptown Theater opens in Washington D.C.
November 2
* The BBC launches the world's first regular (then) high-definition television service.
* The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) begins radio in Canada.
November 3 – U.S. presidential election, 1936: Franklin D. Roosevelt is reelected to a second term in a landslide victory over Alf Landon. Farmers support Roosevelt.
November 12 – In California, the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opens to traffic.
November 20 – A levee failure and continued massive rain at the Mitsubishi Osarizawa mine, Kazuno, northeastern Akita, Japan, results in at least 375 deaths.
November 23 – The first edition of ''Life Magazine'' is published.
November 25 – The Abraham Lincoln Brigade sails from New York City on its way to the Spanish Civil War.
November 26 – The Anti-Comintern Pact is signed by Germany and Japan.
November 30 – In London, the Crystal Palace is destroyed in a fire (it had been built for the 1851 Great Exhibition).
December 1 – Hitler makes it mandatory that Boys 10 to 18 join Hitler Youth
December 3 – Radio station WQXR is officially founded in New York City.
December 5 – The Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic is dissolved and Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia become full Republics of the Soviet Union.
December 10–December 11 – King Edward VIII signs an instrument of abdication at Fort Belvedere in the presence of his three brothers, The Duke of York, The Duke of Gloucester and The Duke of Kent.
December 11
* The British Parliament passes His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act 1936 on behalf of the UK, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
* The King performs his last act as sovereign by giving royal assent to the Act.
* Prince Albert, Duke of York, becomes King, reigning as King George VI.
* The abdicated King Edward VIII, now HRH Prince Edward, makes a broadcast to the nation explaining his decision to abdicate. He leaves the country for Austria.
December 12
* The Irish Free State passes the External Relations Act to legislate for Edward VIII's abdication in that realm.
* Xi'an Incident: Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek of the Republic of China is kidnapped by Zhang Xueliang.
December 24 – Release of the film Natalka Poltavka in Ukraine, the first filmed Russian opera.
December 29 – The United Auto Workers begins the Flint Sit-Down Strike in Flint, Michigan.
West China Famine: five million die.
Ipswich Town Football Club turns professional.
The YMCA Youth and Government program is founded in Albany, New York.
Mordecai Ham begins his radio ministry.
Stress is first recognised as a medical condition.
Polaroid sunglasses and Ambre Solaire sunblock both first marketed.
Cocoa production in the Gold Coast reaches 305,000 tons.
Death of probably the last thylacine (Tasmanian wolf).
January 2 – Roger Miller, American singer (''King of the Road'') (d. 1992)
January 5 – Florence King, American writer
January 6 – Julio Maria Sanguinetti Coirolo, President of Uruguay
January 10
* Stephen Ambrose, American historian (d. 2002)
* Burnum Burnum, Australian Aboriginal activist, author and actor (d. 1997)
* Robert Wilson, American physicist and radio astronomer, Nobel Prize laureate
January 11 – Eva Hesse, American artist (d. 1970)
January 12 – Emile Lahoud, President of Lebanon
January 20 – Frances Shand Kydd, Princess Diana's mother (d. 2004)
January 23
* Jerry Kramer, American football player
* Arlene Golonka, American actress
January 27 – Troy Donahue, American actor (d. 2001)
January 28
* Alan Alda, American actor (''M*A*S*H'')
* Ismail Kadare, Albanian writer
February 3 – Jim Marshall, American photographer (d. 2010)
February 4 – Gary Conway, American actor (''Land of the Giants'')
February 6 – Kent Douglas, Canadian ice hockey player and coach (d. 2009)
February 8 – Larry Verne, American singer and songwriter
February 9
* Stompin' Tom Connors, Canadian country/folk singer
* Clive Swift, British actor
February 11 – Burt Reynolds, American actor (''Dan August'')
February 14 – Andrew Prine, American actor
February 17 – Jim Brown, African-American football player
February 19 – Sam Myers, American musician and songwriter (d. 2006)
February 20
* Larry Hovis, American actor (''Hogan's Heroes'') (d. 2003)
* Shigeo Nagashima, Japanese professional baseball player and coach
February 24 – Lance Reventlow, English playboy, entrepreneur, and race car driver (d. 1972)
February 27 – Roger Mahony, fourth Archbishop of Los Angeles
February 29 – Alex Rocco, American actor
March 2 – Alan Scott, blacksmith and brick oven constructer.
March 4
* Jim Clark, Scottish race car driver (d. 1968)
* Aribert Reimann, German composer
March 5 – Dean Stockwell, American actor (''Quantum Leap'')
March 6
* Elmira Zherzdeva, Soviet singer and voice actress.
* Marion Barry, Mayor of Washington, D.C.
March 7 – Loren Acton, American astronaut
March 8 – Sue Ane Langdon, American actress
March 9
* Tom Sestak, American football player (d. 1987)
* Mickey Gilly, American musician
March 10 – Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA
March 11
* Ralph Abernathy, African-American civil rights leader (d. 1990)
* Antonin Scalia, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
March 15 – Howard Greenfield, American songwriter (d. 1986)
March 16 – Raymond Vahan Damadian, Armenian American practitioner of MRI
March 17 – Patty Maloney, American actress
March 18 – F. W. De Klerk, President of South Africa
March 19 – Ursula Andress, Swiss actress (''James Bond: 007'')
March 20 – Lee "Scratch" Perry, Jamaican musician
March 26 – Harry Kalas, American Sportscaster (d. 2009)
March 28 – Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, essayist and Nobel Prize laureate
March 31 – Marge Piercy, American poet and activist
April 10
* Bobby Smith, American singer and songwriter (''The Spinners'')
* John Madden, American football coach and television sportscaster
April 12 – Charles Napier, American actor
April 14 – Kenneth Mars, American actor
April 17 – Jiří Grygar, Czech astronomer
April 21 – James Dobson, Ph.D. (''Focus On The Family''), American child psychologist and conservative political activist
April 22 – Glen Campbell, American country musician (''Wichita Lineman'')
April 23 – Roy Orbison, American singer (''Oh Pretty Woman'') (d. 1988)
April 24
* Glen Hobbie, American baseball player
* Jill Ireland, English actress (d. 1990)
May 2
* Engelbert Humperdinck, British/American singer
* Perdita Huston, American journalist
May 9
* Albert Finney, English actor
* Glenda Jackson, British actress and politician
May 12
* Guillermo Endara, Panamanian President, 1989–1994 (d. 2009)
* Tom Snyder, American talk show host (''Tomorrow'') (d. 2007)
* Frank Stella, American minimalist painter
May 14
* Bobby Darin, American singer (''Mack The Knife'') (d. 1973)
* Dick Howser, American baseball shortstop/manager (d. 1987)
May 15 – Paul Zindel, American writer (d. 2003)
May 17 – Dennis Hopper, American actor and director (''Easy Rider'') (d. 2010)
May 23 – Ingeborg Hallstein, German opera singer
May 25 – Tom T. Hall, American country singer
May 30 – Ruta Lee, Canadian actress
June 1 – Joe Doyle, Irish politician
June 8 – James Darren, American actor and singer (''The Time Tunnel'')
June 17 – Ken Loach, British director
June 18
* Ronald Runaldo Venetiaan, President of Suriname
* Dick Wimmer, American novelist (d. 2011)
June 21 – Joseph Gosnell, Nisga'a statesman
June 22 – Kris Kristofferson, American singer, songwriter, and actor
June 25 – Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie, 3rd President of Indonesia
June 28 – Chuck Howley, American football player
June 29 – Harmon Killebrew, American baseball player (d. 2011)
July 5 – Shirley Knight, American actress
July 9
* Andre Pronovost, French Canadian ice hockey player
* Richard Wilson, Scottish actor and director
July 15 – George Voinovich, American politician, senior senator of Ohio
July 16
* Buddy Merrill, American musician, ''The Lawrence Welk Show''
* Yasuo Fukuda, Japanese politician, Prime Minister of Japan
July 18 – Ted Harris, Canadian ice hockey player
July 20 – Barbara Mikulski, American politician
July 22 – Tom Robbins, American author
July 23 – Don Drysdale, American baseball player (d. 1993)
July 24
* Ruth Buzzi, American actress and comedian (''Sesame Street'')
* Mark Goddard, American actor and teacher (''Lost in Space'')
July 26 – Mary Millar, British actress (d. 1998)
July 28 – Russ Jackson, Canadian football player
July 29 – Elizabeth Dole, U.S. Senator from North Carolina
July 30
* Buddy Guy, American blues guitarist and singer
* Ted Rogers, English comedian and game show host (d. 2001)
August 1
* Bradford Bishop, American fugitive indicted for the murders of his three children, spouse and mother in 1976
* Yves Saint-Laurent, Algerian-born French fashion designer (d. 2008)
* Donald Neilson, British serial killer known as the ''Black Panther''
August 6 – Robert Gnaizda, lawyer and social justice advocate
August 11 – Andre Dubus, American short-story writer (d. 1999)
August 12
* Andre Kolingba, President of Central African Republic (d. 2010)
* Tom McAvoy, American baseball player (d. 2011)
August 18 – Robert Redford, American actor
August 21 – Wilt Chamberlain, African-American basketball player (d. 1999)
August 24 – Kenny Guinn, American politician (d. 2010)
August 25 – Giridharilal Kedia, Former Working President of KVK, Cuttack; Past District Governor of Lions Club International 322C & Former Chairman of IITM cuttack & is known as ''liondayon''.
August 29 – John McCain, U.S. Senator, 2008 Republican Presidential candidate
September 2 – Len Carlson, Canadian voice actor (d. 2006)
September 3 – Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, 2nd President of Tunisia
September 7 – Buddy Holly, American rock 'n' roll singer (d. 1959)
September 11 – Charles Dierkop, American actor
September 14 – Walter Koenig, American actor (''Star Trek'')
September 16 – Ken Forsse, American inventor and producer, creator of Teddy Ruxpin
September 19 – Anna Karen, British actress
September 21 – Yuriy Luzhkov, mayor of Moscow
September 24 – Jim Henson, American puppeteer, filmmaker, and television producer (''The Muppets'') (d. 1990)
September 25 – Moussa Traore, President of Mali
September 27 – Don Cornelius, American television personality
September 29 – Silvio Berlusconi, Italian politician, entrepreneur, and media proprietor
October 1
* Stella Stevens, American actress
* Duncan Edwards, English Footballer (d. 1958)
October 5 – Václav Havel, Czech playwright, writer and politician
October 7 – Fereydoun Farrokhzad, Iranian Entertainer (d. 1992)
October 11 – Larry Staverman, American professional basketball player and coach (d. 2007)
October 19
* Tony Lo Bianco, American actor
* James Bevel, American 1960s Civil Rights Movement strategist and organizer (d. 2008)
October 24 – David Nelson, American actor and singer (''The Adventures of Ozzie And Harriet'') (d. 2011)
October 25 – Masako Nozawa, Japanese voice actress
October 26 – Shelley Morrison, American actress
October 29 – Akiko Kojima, Japanese model
October 31 – Michael Landon, American actor and director (''Bonanza'' and ''Little House on the Prairie'') (d. 1991)
November 2 – Rose Bird, American judge (d. 1999)
November 3 – Roy Emerson, Australian tennis player
November 4 – C. K. Williams, American poet
November 5
* Uwe Seeler, German football player and manager
* Billy Sherrill, American record producer and arranger
November 9 – Teddy Infuhr, American child actor (d. 2007)
November 17 – Dahlia Ravikovitch, Israeli poet (d. 2005)
November 19 – Dick Cavett, American talk show host
November 20 – Don DeLillo, American author
November 23
* Robert Barnard, British writer, critic and lecturer
* Steve Landesberg, American actor and director (''Barney Miller'') (d. 2010)
December 5 – James Lee Burke, American writer
December 6 – Kenneth Copeland, American televangelist
December 8
* Elizabeth MacRae, American actress
* David Carradine, American actor, director, martial artist and singer (''Kung Fu'') (d. 2009)
December 12 – Iolanda Balaş, Romanian high-jumper
December 23 – James Stacy, American actor
December 25 – Princess Alexandra of Kent, daughter of The Duke and Duchess of Kent
December 29 – Mary Tyler Moore, American actress (''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'')
January 1 – Harry B. Smith, American composer (b. 1860)
January 4 – James Churchward, British writer (b. 1851)
January 6 – Louise Bryant, American journalist (b. 1885)
January 9 – John Gilbert, American actor (b. 1899)
January 15 – George Landenberger, United States Navy Captain and the 23rd Governor of American Samoa (b. 1879)
January 16 – Albert Fish, American serial killer (executed) (b. 1870)
January 18 – Rudyard Kipling, British writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1865)
January 20 – King George V of the United Kingdom (b. 1865)
January 23 – John Mills, Jr., "Mills Brothers" basso and guitarist (b. 1911)
January 28 – Richard Loeb, American murderer (b. 1905)
February 3 – Sophie of Schönburg-Waldenburg, consort of William of Wied, Prince of Albania (b.1885)
February 4 – Wilhelm Gustloff, German leader of the Swiss Nazi Party (b. 1895)
February 8 – Charles Curtis, 31st Vice President of the United States (b. 1860)
February 19 – Billy Mitchell, U.S. general and military aviation pioneer (b. 1879)
February 26 – in the "February 26 Incident":
* Takahashi Korekiyo, 11th Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1854)
* Saito Makoto, 19th Prime Minister of Japan (b. 1858)
February 27 – Ivan Pavlov, Russian psychologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1849)
February 28 – Charles Nicolle, French bacteriologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1866)
March 16 – Marguerite Durand, French journalist and feminist leader (b. 1864)
March 21 – Alexander Glazunov, Russian composer and conductor (b. 1865)
March 23 – Oscar Asche, Australian actor (b. 1871)
April 3 – Bruno Hauptmann, German killer of Charles Lindbergh Jr. (b. 1899)
April 7 – Marilyn Miller, American actress (b. 1898)
April 8 – Robert Bárány, Austrian physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1876)
April 18 – Ottorino Respighi, Italian composer, musicologist, and conductor (b. 1879)
April 26 – Tammany Young, American actor (b. 1886)
April 28 – Fuad I of Egypt, King of Egypt (b. 1868)
April 30 – Alfred Edward Housman, English poet (b. 1859)
May 8 – Oswald Spengler, German philosopher (b. 1880)
May 29 – Norman Chaney, American Our Gang actor (b. 1914)
June 7 – Henry B. Walthall, American actor (b. 1878)
June 11 – Robert E. Howard, American author (suicide) (b. 1906)
June 14 – G. K. Chesterton, English author (b. 1874)
June 18 – Maxim Gorky, Russian writer (b. 1868)
June 28 – Alexander Berkman Russian anarchist (b. 1870)
July 8 – Thomas Meighan, American actor (b. 1879)
July 11 – James Murray, American actor (b. 1901)
July 16 – Alan Crosland, American film director (b. 1894)
July 21 – Georg Michaelis, Chancellor of Germany (b. 1857)
August 2 – Louis Blériot, French aviation pioneer (b. 1872)
August 9 – Lincoln Steffens, American journalist (b. 1866)
August 15 – Grazia Deledda, Italian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1871)
August 19
* Federico García Lorca, Spanish writer (b. 1898)
* Hugh Patrick Lygon, English artistocrat (b. 1904)
August 25
* Grigory Zinoviev, Soviet politician (b. 1883)
* Lev Kamenev, Soviet politician (b. 1883)
September 7 – Kenneth Robert Balfour, British Conservative Party politician (b. 1863)
September 14 – Irving Thalberg, American film producer (b. 1899)
September 17 – Henri Louis Le Chatelier, French chemist (Le Chatelier's principle) (b. 1850)
September 19 – Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande, Indian musician (b. 1860)
October 2 – Juho Sunila, Prime Minister of Finland (b. 1875)
October 3 – John Heisman, American football coach (b. 1869)
October 8 – William Henry Stark, American businessman (b. 1851)
October 20 – Anne Sullivan, American teacher of Helen Keller (b. 1866)
November 7 – Chic Sale, American vaudevillian (b. 1885)
November 17 – John Bowers, American actor (b. 1885)
November 20 – Buenaventura Durruti, Spanish anarchist (b. 1896)
November 25 – Andrew Harper, Scottish–Australian biblical scholar and teacher (b. 1844)
December 9
* Arvid Lindman, Prime Minister of Sweden (b. 1862)
* Lottie Pickford, Canadian actress (b. 1895)
December 10
* Bobby Abel, English cricketer (b. 1857)
* Luigi Pirandello, Italian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1867)
December 24 – Irene Fenwick, American actress (b. 1887)
Physics – Victor F. Hess, Carl D. Anderson
Chemistry – Petrus (Peter) Josephus Wilhelmus Debye
Physiology or Medicine – Sir Henry Hallett Dale, Otto Loewi
Literature – Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
Peace – Carlos Saavedra Lamas
The 1930s Timeline: 1936 — from American Studies Programs at the University of Virginia
af:1936
am:1936 እ.ኤ.አ.
ang:1936
ar:ملحق:1936
an:1936
frp:1936
ast:1936
gn:1936
av:1936
ay:1936
az:1936
bn:১৯৩৬
zh-min-nan:1936 nî
map-bms:1936
be:1936
be-x-old:1936
bh:१९३६
bcl:1936
bs:1936
br:1936
bg:1936
ca:1936
cv:1936
cs:1936
cbk-zam:1936
co:1936
cy:1936
da:1936
de:1936
et:1936
el:1936
myv:1936 ие
es:1936
eo:1936
ext:1936
eu:1936
fa:۱۹۳۶ (میلادی)
hif:1936
fo:1936
fr:1936
fy:1936
ga:1936
gv:1936
gd:1936
gl:1936
gan:1936年
xal:1936 җил
ko:1936년
hy:1936
hi:१९३६
hr:1936.
io:1936
ilo:1936
bpy:মারি ১৯৩৬
id:1936
ia:1936
os:1936-æм аз
is:1936
it:1936
he:1936
jv:1936
kn:೧೯೩೬
pam:1936
krc:1936 джыл
ka:1936
csb:1936
kk:1936
kw:1936
sw:1936
kv:1936 во
ht:1936 (almanak gregoryen)
ku:1936
la:1936
lv:1936. gads
lb:1936
lt:1936 m.
lij:1936
li:1936
jbo:1936moi
lmo:1936
hu:1936
mk:1936
mg:1936
ml:1936
mi:1936
mr:इ.स. १९३६
arz:1936
ms:1936
mn:1936
nah:1936
nl:1936
nds-nl:1936
ne:१९३६
new:ई सं १९३६
ja:1936年
nap:1936
no:1936
nn:1936
nrm:1936
nov:1936
oc:1936
mhr:1936
uz:1936
pa:੧੯੩੬
pi:१९३६
pnb:1936
pap:1936
tpi:1936
nds:1936
pl:1936
pt:1936
ty:1936
ksh:Joohr 1936
ro:1936
qu:1936
rue:1936
ru:1936 год
sah:1936
se:1936
sc:1936
stq:1936
sq:1936
scn:1936
simple:1936
sk:1936
sl:1936
so:1936
ckb:١٩٣٦
sr:1936
sh:1936
su:1936
fi:1936
sv:1936
tl:1936
ta:1936
tt:1936 ел
te:1936
tet:1936
th:พ.ศ. 2479
tr:1936
tk:1936
udm:1936 ар
uk:1936
ur:1936ء
vec:1936
vi:1936
vo:1936
fiu-vro:1936
wa:1936
vls:1936
war:1936
yi:1936
yo:1936
zh-yue:1936年
diq:1936
zh:1936年
Events
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Date unknown
Births
January–February
March–April
May–June
July–August
September–October
November–December
Deaths
January–June
July–December
Nobel Prizes
References
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Jesse Owens |
|---|---|
| Fullname | James Cleveland Owens |
| Nationality | American |
| Birth date | September 12, 1913 |
| Birth place | Oakville, Alabama, USA |
| Death date | March 31, 1980 |
| Death place | Tucson, Arizona, USA |
| Deathcause | Lung Cancer |
| Country | America |
| Sport | Track and field athletics |
| Event | Sprint, Long jump |
| Medaltemplates | }} |
James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens (September 12, 1913 – March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete who specialized in the sprints and the long jump. He participated in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, where he achieved international fame by winning four gold medals: one each in the 100 meters, the 200 meters, the long jump, and as part of the 4x100 meter relay team. He was the most successful athlete at the 1936 Summer Olympics, a victory more poignant and often noted because Adolf Hitler had intended the 1936 games to showcase his Aryan ideals and prowess.
He has the Jesse Owens Award accolade named after him in honor of his significant career.
Childhood
James Cleveland Owens was born the seventh of eleven children of Henry and Mary Emma Owens in Oakville, Alabama on September 12, 1913. "J.C.", as he was called, was nine when the family moved to Cleveland, Ohio for better opportunities, as part of the Great Migration, when 1.5 million African Americans left the segregated South. His new teacher nicknamed him Jesse. When she asked his name to enter in her roll book, he said J.C., but because of his strong Southern accent, she thought he said "Jesse". The name took and he was known as Jesse Owens for the rest of his life.As a boy and youth, Owens took different jobs in his spare time: he delivered groceries, loaded freight cars and worked in a shoe repair shop. During this period, Owens realized that he had a passion for running. Throughout his life, Owens attributed the success of his athletic career to the encouragement of Charles Riley, his junior-high track coach at Fairmount Junior High. Since Owens worked in a shoe repair shop after school, Riley allowed him to practice before school instead.
Owens first came to national attention when he was a student of East Technical High School in Cleveland; he equaled the world record of 9.4 seconds in the dash and long-jumped 24 feet 9 ½ inches (7.56 m) at the 1933 National High School Championship in Chicago.
Ohio State University
Owens attended the Ohio State University after employment was found for his father, ensuring the family could be supported. Affectionately known as the "Buckeye bullet," Owens won a record eight individual NCAA championships, four each in 1935 and 1936. (The record of four gold medals at the NCAA was equaled only by Xavier Carter in 2006, although his many titles also included relay medals.) Though Owens enjoyed athletic success, he had to live off campus with other African-American athletes. When he traveled with the team, Owens was restricted to ordering carry-out or eating at "black-only" restaurants. Similarly, he had to stay at "blacks-only" hotels. Owens did not receive a scholarship for his efforts, so he continued to work part-time jobs to pay for school.Owens's greatest achievement came in a span of 45 minutes on May 25, 1935 at the Big Ten meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he set three world records and tied a fourth. He equaled the world record for the 100-yard (91 m) sprint (9.4 seconds); and set world records in the long jump (26 feet 8¼ inches (8.13 m), a world record that would last 25 years); 220-yard (201.2 m) sprint (20.3 seconds); and 220-yard (201.2m) low hurdles (22.6 seconds, becoming the first to break 23 seconds). In 2005, NBC sports announcer Bob Costas and University of Central Florida professor of sports history Richard C. Crepeau both chose these wins on one day as the most impressive athletic achievement since 1850.
Owens was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.
Berlin Olympics
In 1936, Owens arrived in Berlin to compete for the United States in the Summer Olympics. Adolf Hitler was using the games to show the world a resurgent Nazi Germany. He and other government officials had high hopes that German athletes would dominate the games with victories (the German athletes achieved a "top of the table" medal haul). Meanwhile, Nazi propaganda promoted concepts of "Aryan racial superiority" and depicted ethnic Africans as inferior.
Owens surprised many by winning four gold medals: On August 3, 1936 he won the 100m sprint, defeating Ralph Metcalfe; on August 4, the long jump (later crediting friendly and helpful advice from Luz Long, the German competitor he ultimately defeated); on August 5, the 200m sprint; and, after he was added to the 4 x 100 m relay team, he won his fourth on August 9 (a performance not equaled until Carl Lewis won gold medals in the same events at the 1984 Summer Olympics).
Just before the competitions, Owens was visited in the Olympic village by Adi Dassler, the founder of the Adidas athletic shoe company. He persuaded Owens to use Adidas shoes, the first sponsorship for a male African-American athlete.
The long-jump victory is documented, along with many other 1936 events, in the 1938 film ''Olympia'' by Leni Riefenstahl.
On the first day, Hitler shook hands only with the German victors and then left the stadium. Olympic committee officials insisted Hitler greet every medalist or none at all. Hitler opted for the latter and skipped all further medal presentations. On reports that Hitler had deliberately avoided acknowledging his victories, and had refused to shake his hand, Owens said at the time:
Hitler expressed his feelings about Owens and Africans in private. Albert Speer, Hitler's architect and later war armaments minister, recollected:
Owens was allowed to travel with and stay in the same hotels as whites, while at the time blacks in many parts of the United States were denied equal rights. After a New York City ticker-tape parade of Fifth Avenue in his honor, Owens had to ride the freight elevator at the Waldorf-Astoria to reach the reception honoring him.
Owens said, "Hitler didn't snub me – it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram." On the other hand, Hitler sent Owens a commemorative inscribed cabinet photograph of himself. Jesse Owens was never invited to the White House nor were honors bestowed upon him by president Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) or his successor Harry S. Truman during their terms. In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower honored Owens by naming him an "Ambassador of Sports."
In August 2009, the London Daily Telegraph found a German sports reporter, Siegfried Mischner then aged 83, who claimed that Owens had shown him a photograph of Hitler shaking his hand after the 100 meters event, behind the stadium's honor stand. There is no independent confirmation of this.
Post Olympics
He was quoted saying the secret behind his success was “I let my feet spend as little time on the ground as possible. From the air, fast down, and from the ground, fast up.”After the games had finished, the Olympic team and Owens were all invited to compete in Sweden. He decided to capitalize on his success by returning to the United States to take up some of the more lucrative commercial offers. United States athletic officials were furious and withdrew his amateur status, ending his career immediately. Owens was angry, saying, "A fellow desires something for himself."
Prohibited from amateur sporting appearances to bolster his profile, Owens found the commercial offers all but disappeared. In 1946, he joined Abe Saperstein in the formation of the West Coast Baseball Association (WCBA), a new Negro baseball league; Owens was vice-president and the owner of the Portland (Oregon) Rosebuds franchise. He toured with the Rosebuds, sometimes entertaining the audience in between doubleheader games by competing in races against horses. The WCBA disbanded after only two months. He helped promote the exploitation film ''Mom and Dad'' in black neighborhoods. He tried to make a living as a sports promoter, essentially an entertainer. He would give local sprinters a ten or twenty-yard start and beat them in the 100-yd (91 m) dash. He also challenged and defeated racehorses; as he revealed later, the trick was to race a high-strung thoroughbred that would be frightened by the starter's shotgun and give him a bad jump. Owens said, "People say that it was degrading for an Olympic champion to run against a horse, but what was I supposed to do? I had four gold medals, but you can't eat four gold medals."
Owens ran a dry-cleaning business and worked as a gas station attendant to earn a living. He eventually filed for bankruptcy. In 1966, he was successfully prosecuted for tax evasion. At rock bottom, he was aided in beginning rehabilitation. The government appointed him a U.S. goodwill ambassador. Owens traveled the world and spoke to companies such as the Ford Motor Company and stakeholders such as the United States Olympic Committee. After he retired, he owned racehorses.
Owens refused to support the black power salute by African-American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Summer Olympics. He told them,
After smoking for 35 years, Owens contracted lung cancer. He died from the disease at age 66 in Tucson, Arizona in 1980. He is buried in Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago.
A few months before his death, Owens had tried unsuccessfully to convince President Jimmy Carter not to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics. He argued that the Olympic ideal was to be a time-out from war and above politics.
Marriage and family
Owens and Minnie Ruth Solomon met at Fairmount Junior High School in Cleveland when he was 15 years old and she was 13 years old. They dated steadily through high school. Ruth gave birth to their first daughter, Gloria, in 1932. They married in 1935 and had two more daughters together: Marlene, born in 1939, and Beverly, born in 1940. They were married until his death.
Awards, tributes and honors
See also
References
External links
Category:1913 births Category:1980 deaths Category:African American track and field athletes Category:American long jumpers Category:American sprinters Category:Athletes (track and field) at the 1936 Summer Olympics Category:Cancer deaths in Arizona Category:Congressional Gold Medal recipients Category:Deaths from lung cancer Category:Former world record holders in athletics (track and field) Category:Olympic track and field athletes of the United States Category:Olympic gold medalists for the United States Category:Ohio State Buckeyes track and field athletes Category:Ohio State University alumni Category:Sportspeople from Cleveland, Ohio Category:People from Lawrence County, Alabama Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:African American history of Alabama Category:High school national record holder Category:Olympic medalists in athletics (track and field)
af:Jesse Owens an:Jesse Owens bn:জেসি ওয়েন্স br:Jesse Owens ca:Jesse Owens cs:Jesse Owens cy:Jesse Owens da:Jesse Owens de:Jesse Owens et:Jesse Owens el:Τζέσε Όουενς es:Jesse Owens eo:Jesse Owens eu:Jesse Owens fa:جسی اونز fr:Jesse Owens fy:Jesse Owens gl:Jesse Owens ko:제시 오언스 hy:Ջեսսի Օուենս hr:Jesse Owens id:Jesse Owens it:Jesse Owens he:ג'סי אוונס jv:Jesse Owens lv:Džese Ovenss lb:Jesse Owens hu:Jesse Owens ml:ജെസ്സി ഓവൻസ് nl:Jesse Owens ja:ジェシー・オーエンス no:Jesse Owens pl:James Owens pt:Jesse Owens ro:Jesse Owens qu:Jesse Owens ru:Оуэнс, Джесси scn:Jesse Owens simple:Jesse Owens sk:Jesse Owens sl:Jesse Owens sr:Џеси Овенс sh:Jesse Owens fi:Jesse Owens sv:Jesse Owens tl:Jesse Owens ta:ஜெசி ஓவென்ஸ் tr:Jesse Owens uk:Джессі Овенс ur:جیسی اوونز vi:Jesse Owens wa:Jesse Owens yo:Jesse Owens zh:杰西·欧文斯This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Adolf Hitler |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Austrian citizen until 7 April 1925German citizen after 25 February 1932 |
| Birth date | April 20, 1889 |
| Birth place | Braunau am Inn, Austria–Hungary |
| Death date | April 30, 1945 |
| Death place | Berlin, Germany |
| Death cause | Suicide |
| Party | National Socialist German Workers' Party (1921–1945) |
| Otherparty | German Workers' Party (1920–1921) |
| Religion | See Adolf Hitler's religious views |
| Spouse | Eva Braun(29–30 April 1945) |
| Occupation | Politician, soldier, artist, writer |
| Order | Führer of Germany |
| Term start | 2 August 1934 |
| Term end | 30 April 1945 |
| Chancellor | Himself |
| Predecessor | Paul von Hindenburg(as President) |
| Successor | Karl Dönitz(as President) |
| Order2 | Chancellor of Germany |
| Term start2 | 30 January 1933 |
| Term end2 | 30 April 1945 |
| President2 | Paul von HindenburgHimself (''Führer'') |
| Deputy2 | Franz von PapenVacant |
| Predecessor2 | Kurt von Schleicher |
| Successor2 | Joseph Goebbels |
| Signature | Hitler Signature2.svg |
| Allegiance | |
| Branch | ''Reichsheer'' |
| Unit | 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment |
| Serviceyears | 1914–1918 |
| Rank | ''Gefreiter'' |
| Battles | World War I |
| Awards | Iron Cross First ClassWound Badge }} |
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (, abbreviated NSDAP, commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state (as ''Führer und Reichskanzler'') from 1934 to 1945. Hitler is most commonly associated with the rise of fascism in Europe, World War II and the Holocaust.
A decorated veteran of World War I, Hitler joined the precursor of the Nazi Party (DAP) in 1919, and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, Hitler attempted a coup d'état, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, at the Bürgerbräukeller beer hall in Munich. The failed coup resulted in Hitler's imprisonment, during which time he wrote his memoir, ''Mein Kampf'' (''My Struggle''). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained support by promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and propaganda. He was appointed chancellor in 1933, and transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism.
Hitler's avowed aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe. His foreign and domestic policies had the goal of seizing ''Lebensraum'' (''living space'') for the Germanic people. This included the rearmament of Germany, resulting in the invasion of Poland by the ''Wehrmacht'' in September 1939, leading to the outbreak of World War II in Europe.
Under Hitler's direction, German forces and their European allies at one point occupied most of Europe and North Africa, reversed in 1945 when the Allied armies defeated the German army. Hitler's racially motivated policies resulted in the systematic annihilation of as many as 17 million civilians, including an estimated six million Jews targeted in the Holocaust and between 500,000 and 1,500,000 Roma.
In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time mistress, Eva Braun. To avoid capture by the Red Army, the two committed suicide less than two days later on 30 April 1945 and their corpses were burned.
Early years
Ancestry
Hitler's father, Alois Hitler, was an illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. Therefore, the name of Alois' father was not listed on Alois' birth certificate, and he bore his mother's surname. In 1842, Johann Georg Hiedler married Maria, and in 1876 Alois testified before a notary and three witnesses that Johann was his father. Despite his testimony, the question of Alois' paternity remained unresolved. Hans Frank claimed—after receiving an extortionary letter from Hitler's nephew William Patrick Hitler threatening to reveal embarrassing information about Hitler's family tree—to have uncovered letters revealing that Alois' mother was employed as a housekeeper for a Jewish family in Graz and that the family's 19-year-old son, Leopold Frankenberger, had fathered Alois. However, Frank's claim remained unsupported, and Frank himself did not believe that Hitler had Jewish ancestry. Claims of Alois' father being Jewish were doubted by historians in the 1990s. Ian Kershaw dismissed the Frankenberger story as a "smear" by Hitler's enemies, noting that all Jews had been expelled from Graz in the 15th century and were not allowed to return until after Alois' birth.
At age 39, Alois assumed the surname ''Hitler'', variously spelled also as ''Hiedler'', ''Hüttler'', or ''Huettler'', and was probably regularized to its final spelling by a clerk. The origin of the name is either "one who lives in a hut" (Standard German ''Hütte''), "shepherd" (Standard German ''hüten'' "to guard", English ''heed''), or is from the Slavic word ''Hidlar'' and ''Hidlarcek''.
Childhood
Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 at around 6:30 pm at the Gasthof zum Pommer, an inn in Ranshofen, a village annexed to the municipality of Braunau am Inn, Upper Austria in 1938. He was the fourth of six children to Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl. All of Adolf's older siblings – Gustav, Ida, and Otto – died before reaching three years of age.At the age of three, his family moved to Kapuzinerstrasse 5 in Passau, Germany. There, Hitler would acquire a Bavarian dialect of Austro-Bavarian rather than an Austrian dialect. In 1894, the family relocated to Leonding near Linz, and in June 1895, Alois retired to a small landholding at Hafeld near Lambach, where he tried his hand at farming and beekeeping. Adolf attended school in nearby Fischlham, and in his free time, he played "Cowboys and Indians". Hitler became fixated on warfare after finding a picture book about the Franco-Prussian War among his father's belongings.
Alois Hitler's farming efforts at Hafeld ended in failure, and in 1897 the family moved to Lambach. Hitler attended a Catholic school in an 11th-century Benedictine cloister, the walls of which bore engravings and crests that contained the symbol of the swastika. In Lambach the eight-year-old Hitler also sang in the church choir, took singing lessons, and even entertained thoughts of one day becoming a priest. In 1898, the family returned permanently to Leonding.
On 2 February 1900 Hitler's younger brother, Edmund, died of measles, deeply affecting Hitler, whose character changed from being confident and outgoing and an excellent student, to a morose, detached, and sullen boy who constantly fought his father and his teachers.
Hitler was attached to his mother, but he had a troubled relationship with his father, who frequently beat him, especially in the years after Alois' retirement and failed farming efforts. Alois was a Austrian customs official who wanted his son to follow in his footsteps, which caused much conflict between them. Ignoring his son's wishes to attend a classical high school and become an artist, in September 1900 his father sent Adolf to the Realschule in Linz, a technical high school of about 300 students. Hitler rebelled against this decision, and in ''Mein Kampf'' revealed that he failed his first year, hoping that once his father saw "what little progress I was making at the technical school he would let me devote myself to the happiness I dreamed of."
German Nationalism became an obsession for Hitler, and a way to rebel against his father, who proudly served the Austrian government. Most residents living along the German-Austrian border considered themselves German-Austrians, whereas Hitler expressed loyalty only to Germany. In defiance of the Austrian monarchy, and his father who continually expressed loyalty to it, Hitler and his friends used the German greeting "Heil", and sang the German anthem "Deutschland Über Alles" instead of the Austrian Imperial anthem.
After Alois' sudden death on 3 January 1903, Hitler's behaviour at the technical school became even more disruptive, and he was asked to leave in 1904. He enrolled at the ''Realschule'' in Steyr in September 1904, but upon completing his second year, he and his friends went out for a night of celebration and drinking. While drunk, Hitler tore up his school certificate and used its pieces as toilet paper. The stained certificate was brought to the attention of the school's principal who "... gave him such a dressing-down that the boy was reduced to shivering jelly. It was probably the most painful and humiliating experience of his life." Hitler was expelled, never to return to school again.
Aged 15, Hitler took part in his First Communion on Whitsunday, 22 May 1904, at the Linz Cathedral. His sponsor was Emanuel Lugert, a friend of his late father.
Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich
From 1905, Hitler lived a bohemian life in Vienna with financial support from orphan's benefits and his mother. He was rejected twice by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (1907–1908), because of his "unfitness for painting", and was recommended to study architecture. Following this recommendation, he intended to pursue architectural studies, yet he lacked the academic credentials required for architecture school:
In a few days I myself knew that I should some day become an architect. To be sure, it was an incredibly hard road; for the studies I had neglected out of spite at the Realschule were sorely needed. One could not attend the Academy's architectural school without having attended the building school at the Technic, and the latter required a high-school degree. I had none of all this. The fulfillment of my artistic dream seemed physically impossible.
On 21 December 1907, Hitler's mother died of breast cancer at age 47; Hitler was devastated, and carried the grief from her death with him for the rest of his life. Ordered by a court in Linz, Hitler gave his share of the orphan's benefits to his sister Paula, and at the age of 21, he inherited money from an aunt. He struggled as a painter in Vienna, copying scenes from postcards and selling his paintings to merchants and tourists. After being rejected a second time by the Academy of Arts, Hitler ran out of money. In 1909, he lived in a shelter for the homeless, and by 1910, he had settled into a house for poor working men on Meldemannstraße. Another resident of the shelter, Reinhold Hanisch, sold Hitler's paintings until the two men had a bitter falling-out.
Hitler stated that he first became an antisemite in Vienna, which had a large Jewish community, including Orthodox Jews who had fled the pogroms in Russia. According to childhood friend August Kubizek, however, Hitler was a "confirmed antisemite" before he left Linz. Brigitte Hamann wrote that “of all those early witnesses who can be taken seriously Kubizek is the only one to portray young Hitler as an anti-Semite and precisely in this respect he is not trustworthy.” Vienna at that time was a hotbed of traditional religious prejudice and 19th century racism. Hitler may have been influenced by the occult writings of the antisemite Lanz von Liebenfels in his magazine ''Ostara''; he probably read the publication, although it is uncertain to what degree he was influenced by von Liebenfels' writings.
{{bquote|There were very few Jews in Linz. In the course of centuries the Jews who lived there had become Europeanised in external appearance and were so much like other human beings that I even looked upon them as Germans. The reason why I did not then perceive the absurdity of such an illusion was that the only external mark which I recognized as distinguishing them from us was the practice of their strange religion. As I thought that they were persecuted on account of their faith my aversion to hearing remarks against them grew almost into a feeling of abhorrence. I did not in the least suspect that there could be such a thing as a systematic antisemitism.
Once, when passing through the inner City, I suddenly encountered a phenomenon in a long caftan and wearing black side-locks. My first thought was: Is this a Jew? They certainly did not have this appearance in Linz. I carefully watched the man stealthily and cautiously but the longer I gazed at the strange countenance and examined it feature by feature, the more the question shaped itself in my brain: Is this a German?}}
Martin Luther's ''On the Jews and Their Lies'' may have also shaped Hitler's views. In ''Mein Kampf'', he refers to Martin Luther as a great warrior, a true statesman, and a great reformer, alongside Richard Wagner and Frederick the Great. Wilhelm Röpke concluded that "without any question, Lutheranism influenced the political, spiritual and social history of Germany in a way that, after careful consideration of everything, can be described only as fateful."
However, at the time Hitler apparently did not act on his views. He was a frequent dinner guest in a wealthy Jewish house, and he interacted well with Jewish merchants who tried to sell his paintings.
Hitler received the final part of his father's estate in May 1913 and moved to Munich. He wrote in ''Mein Kampf'' that he had always longed to live in a "real" German city. In Munich, he further pursued his interest in architecture and the writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Moving to Munich also helped him avoid military service in Austria, but the Munich police in cooperation with the Austrian authorities eventually arrested him for dodging the draft. After a physical exam and a contrite plea, he was deemed unfit for service and allowed to return to Munich. However, when Germany entered World War I in August 1914, he successfully petitioned King Ludwig III of Bavaria for permission to serve in a Bavarian regiment, and enlisted in the Bavarian army.
World War I
Hitler served as a runner on the Western Front in France and Belgium in the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16. He experienced major combat, including the First Battle of Ypres, the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras and the Battle of Passchendaele.
Hitler was twice decorated for bravery, receiving the Iron Cross, Second Class, in 1914 and Iron Cross, First Class on 4 August 1918. He also received the Wound Badge. Hitler's First Class Iron Cross was recommended by Hugo Gutmann, and although the latter decoration was rarely awarded to a ''Gefreiter'', it may be explained by Hitler's post at regimental headquarters where he had more frequent interactions with senior officers than other soldiers of similar rank. The regimental staff, however, thought Hitler lacked leadership skills, and he was never promoted.
While serving at regimental headquarters Hitler pursued his artwork, drawing cartoons and instructions for an army newspaper. In October 1916, he was wounded either in the groin area or the left thigh when a shell exploded in the dispatch runners' dug-out during the Battle of the Somme. Hitler spent almost two months in the Red Cross hospital at Beelitz. He returned to his regiment on 5 March 1917.
On 15 October 1918, Hitler and several comrades were temporarily blinded by a mustard gas attack, but it has also been suggested that he suffered from conversion disorder, then known as "hysteria". He was hospitalized in Pasewalk. Hitler became embittered over the collapse of the war effort. It was during this time that Hitler's ideological development began to firmly take shape. Some scholars, notably Lucy Dawidowicz, argue that Hitler's intention to exterminate Europe's Jews was fully formed at this time.
Hitler described the war as "the greatest of all experiences" and he was praised by his commanding officers for his bravery. The experience made Hitler a passionate German patriot, and he was shocked by Germany's capitulation in November 1918. Like many other German nationalists, Hitler believed in the ''Dolchstoßlegende'' (Stab-in-the-back legend), which claimed that the army, "undefeated in the field," had been "stabbed in the back" by civilian leaders and Marxists back on the home front, later dubbed the ''November Criminals''.
The Treaty of Versailles, citing Germany's responsibility for the war, stipulated that Germany relinquish several of its territories, demilitarisation of the Rhineland, and imposed economic sanctions and levied reparations on the country. Many Germans perceived the treaty, especially Article 231 on the German responsibility for the war, as a humiliation, and its economic effects on the social and political conditions in Germany were later exploited by Hitler.
Entry into politics
After World War I, Hitler remained in the army and returned to Munich, where he attended the funeral march for the murdered Bavarian prime minister Kurt Eisner. After the suppression of the Bavarian Soviet Republic, he took part in "national thinking" courses organized by the ''Education and Propaganda Department'' of the Bavarian ''Reichswehr'' under Captain Karl Mayr.In July 1919, Hitler was appointed ''Verbindungsmann'' (intelligence agent) of an ''Aufklärungskommando'' (reconnaissance commando) of the ''Reichswehr'', both to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate the German Workers' Party (DAP). While he studied the activities of the DAP, Hitler became impressed with founder Anton Drexler's antisemitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist and anti-Marxist ideas. Drexler favoured a strong active government, a "non-Jewish" version of socialism and solidarity among all members of society. Drexler was impressed with Hitler's oratory skills and invited him to join the DAP, which Hitler accepted on 12 September 1919, becoming its 55th member.
At the DAP, Hitler met Dietrich Eckart, one of its early founders and member of the occult Thule Society. Eckart became Hitler's mentor, exchanging ideas with him and introducing Hitler to a wide range of people in Munich's society. Hitler thanked Eckart and paid tribute to him in the second volume of ''Mein Kampf''. To increase the party's appeal, the party changed its name to the ''Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (National Socialist German Workers Party - NSDAP). Hitler also designed the party's banner of a swastika in a white circle on a red background to make a visual impact.
Hitler was discharged from the army in March 1920 and began participating full time in the party's activities. By early 1921, Hitler had become highly effective at speaking in front of large crowds. In February 1921, Hitler spoke to a crowd of over six thousand in Munich. To publicize the meeting, two truckloads of party supporters drove around waving swastikas and throwing leaflets. Hitler soon gained notoriety for his rowdy, polemic speeches against the Treaty of Versailles, rival politicians, and especially directed against Marxists and Jews. At the time, the NSDAP was centred in Munich, a major hotbed of anti-government German nationalists which was determined to crush Marxism and undermine the Weimar Republic.
In June 1921, while Hitler was on a trip to Berlin (with Eckart) for a fund-raising mission, there was a mutiny among the DAP in Munich, most notably within the executive committee whose members who wanted to merge with the rival German Socialist Party (DSP) and considered Hitler to be too overbearing. Hitler returned to Munich and in anger tendered his resignation from the party on 11 July 1921. However, committee members realized that Hitler's resignation would mean the end of the party. Hitler announced he would only return on the conditions that he replace Drexler as party chairman and the party headquarters would remain in Munich. The committee agreed to his demands and Hitler rejoined the party as member 3,680. However, the conflict was not over. Hermann Esser and his allies printed 3,000 copies of an anonymous pamphlet attacking Hitler as a traitor to the party. In the days which followed, Hitler spoke to a several packed houses and defended himself to thunderous applause. At the general membership meeting which followed, only one no vote was cast in relation to granting Hitler dictatorial powers with his chairmanship being officially and unanimously accepted.
Hitler's vitriolic beer hall speeches began attracting regular audiences. Early followers included Rudolf Hess, the former air force pilot Hermann Göring, and the army captain Ernst Röhm. The latter became head of the Nazis' paramilitary organization the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA, "Storm Division"), which protected meetings and frequently attacked political opponents. A critical influence on his thinking at this period was the Aufbau Vereinigung, a conspiratorial group formed of White Russian exiles and early National Socialists. The group, financed with funds channeled from wealthy industrialists like Henry Ford, introduced him to the idea of a Jewish conspiracy, linking international finance with Bolshevism. Hitler also attracted the attention of local business interests, was accepted into influential circles of Munich society, and became associated with wartime General Erich Ludendorff during this time.
Beer Hall ''Putsch''
Encouraged by his new support, Hitler recruited Ludendorff for an attempted coup known as the "Beer Hall ''Putsch''" (also known as the "Hitler ''Putsch''" or "Munich ''Putsch''"). The Nazi Party had used Italy's fascists as an example for its appearance and policies, and in 1923, Hitler wanted to emulate Benito Mussolini's "March on Rome" by staging his own "Campaign in Berlin". Hitler and Ludendorff sought support of ''Staatskommissar'' (state commissioner) Gustav von Kahr, Bavaria's ''de facto'' ruler. However, Kahr along with Police Chief Hans Ritter von Seisser (Seißer) and Reichswehr General Otto von Lossow wanted to install a nationalist dictatorship without Hitler.Hitler wanted to seize a critical moment for successful popular agitation and support. So on 8 November 1923, Hitler and the SA stormed a public meeting of 3,000 people, organized by Kahr in the Bürgerbräukeller, a large beer hall in Munich. Hitler interrupted Kahr's speech and announced that the national revolution had begun, declaring the formation of a new government with Ludendorff. With his hand gun drawn, Hitler demanded the support of Kahr, Seisser and Lossow. Hitler's forces initially succeeded at occupying the local Reichswehr and police headquarters; however, neither the army nor the state police joined forces with Hitler. Kahr and his consorts quickly withdrew their support and fled to join the opposition to Hitler. The following day, Hitler and his followers marched from the beer hall to the Bavarian War Ministry to overthrow the Bavarian government on their "March on Berlin", but the police dispersed them. Sixteen NSDAP members and four police officers were killed in the failed coup.
Hitler fled to the home of Ernst Hanfstaengl where he contemplated suicide, but Hanfstaengl's wife Helene talked him out of it. He was soon arrested for high treason and tried before the special People's Court in Munich, and Alfred Rosenberg became temporary leader of the NSDAP. During his trial, Hitler was given almost unlimited time to speak, and his popularity soared as he voiced nationalistic sentiments in his defence speech. His trial began on 26 February 1924 and on 1 April 1924 Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at Landsberg Prison. Hitler received friendly treatment from the guards and received a lot of mail from supporters. The Bavarian Supreme Court soon issued a pardon and he was released from jail on 20 December 1924, against the state prosecutor's objections. Including time on remand, Hitler had been imprisoned for just over one year for the attempted coup.
''Mein Kampf''
While at Landsberg, he dictated most of the first volume of ''Mein Kampf'' (''My Struggle'', originally entitled ''Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice'') to his deputy Rudolf Hess. The book, dedicated to Thule Society member Dietrich Eckart, was an autobiography and an exposition of his ideology. ''Mein Kampf'' was influenced by ''The Passing of the Great Race'' by Madison Grant, which Hitler called "my Bible". ''Mein Kampf'' was published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926, selling about 240,000 copies between 1925 and 1934. By the end of the war, about 10 million copies had been sold or distributed. The copyright of ''Mein Kampf'' in Europe is claimed by the Free State of Bavaria and will end on 31 December 2015. In Germany, only heavily commented editions of ''Mein Kampf'' are available solely for academic studies.
Rebuilding of the NSDAP
At the time of Hitler's release from prison, politics in Germany had become less combative, and the economy had improved. This limited Hitler's opportunities for political agitation. As a result of the failed ''Beer Hall Putsch'', the NSDAP and its affiliated organisations were banned in Bavaria. However, Hitler—now claiming to seek political power only through the democratic process—succeeded in persuading Heinrich Held, Prime Minister of Bavaria, to lift the ban. The ban on the NSDAP was lifted on 16 February 1925, but Hitler was barred from public speaking. To be able to advance his political ambitions in spite of the ban, Hitler appointed Gregor Strasser along with his brother Otto and Joseph Goebbels to organize and grow the NSDAP in northern Germany. Strasser, however, steered a more independent political course, emphasizing the socialist element in the party's programme.
Hitler went on to establish a more autocratic rule of the NSDAP and asserted the ''Führerprinzip'' ("Leader principle"). Offices in the party were not determined by elections, but rather filled by appointment by higher ranks who demanded unquestioning obedience from the lower ranks they had appointed.
A key element of Hitler's appeal was his ability to evoke a sense of violated national pride as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. Many Germans strongly resented the terms of the treaty, especially the economic burden of having to pay large reparations to other countries affected by World War I. Nonetheless, attempts by Hitler to win popular support by blaming the demands and assertions in the treaty on "international Jewry" were largely unsuccessful with the electorate. Therefore, Hitler and his party began employing more subtle propaganda methods, combining antisemitism with an attack on the failures of the "Weimar system" and the parties supporting it.
Having failed in overthrowing the republic and gaining power by a coup, Hitler changed tactics and pursued a strategy of formally adhering to the rules of the Weimar Republic until he had gained political power through regular elections. His vision was to then use the institutions of the Weimar Republic to destroy it and establish himself as autocratic leader.
Rise to power
{|class="wikitable sortable" |- |+ Nazi Party election results |- !Date !Votes,total !Votes,percentage !Seats,Reichstag !class=unsortable|Background |- |May 1924 |style="text-align:right;"| |style="text-align:right;"| |style="text-align:right;"| |Hitler in prison |- |December 1924 |style="text-align:right;"| |style="text-align:right;"| |style="text-align:right;"| |Hitler is released from prison |- |May 1928 |style="text-align:right;"| |style="text-align:right;"| |style="text-align:right;"| | |- |September 1930 |style="text-align:right;"| |style="text-align:right;"| |style="text-align:right;"| |After the financial crisis |- |July 1932 |style="text-align:right;"| |style="text-align:right;"| |style="text-align:right;"| |After Hitler was candidate for presidency |- |November 1932 |style="text-align:right;"| |style="text-align:right;"| |style="text-align:right;"| | |- |March 1933 |style="text-align:right;"| |style="text-align:right;"| |style="text-align:right;"| |During Hitler's term as Chancellor of Germany |}
Brüning Administration
Hitler's political turning point came with the Great Depression in Germany in 1930. The Weimar Republic had difficulties taking firm roots in German society and faced strong challenges from right- and left-wing extremists. The moderate political parties committed to the democratic parliamentary republic were increasingly unable to stem the tide of extremism, and the German referendum of 1929 had helped to elevate the profile and prominence of Nazi ideology. In early elections in September 1930, the moderates lost their majority, leading to the break-up of a grand coalition and its replacement by a minority cabinet. Its leader, chancellor Heinrich Brüning of the Centre Party, governed through emergency decrees from the president of state, Paul von Hindenburg. Tolerated by most parties, governance by decree would become the new norm and paved the way for authoritarian forms of government. Notably the NSDAP rose from relative obscurity to win 18.3% of the vote and 107 parliamentary seats in the 1930 election, growing from ninth- to second-largest party in the German parliament.The increasing political clout of Hitler was also felt at the trial of two ''Reichswehr'' officers, ''Leutnants'' Richard Scheringer and Hans Ludin, in the autumn of 1930. Both were charged with membership of the NSDAP, which at that time was illegal for ''Reichswehr'' personnel. The prosecution argued that the NSDAP was a dangerous extremist party, prompting defence lawyer Hans Frank to call on Hitler to testify at the court. During his testimony on 25 September 1930, Hitler stated that his party was aiming to come to power solely through democratic elections and that the NSDAP was a friend of the ''Reichswehr''. Hitler's testimony won him many supporters in the officer corps.
Brüning's budgetary and financial austerity measures brought little economic improvement and were extremely unpopular. Hitler exploited this weakness by targeting his political messages specifically to the segments of the population that had been hard hit by the inflation of the 1920s and the unemployment of the Depression, such as farmers, war veterans, and the middle class.
Hitler formally renounced his Austrian citizenship on 7 April 1925, but at the time did not acquire German citizenship. For almost seven years Hitler was stateless, so he was unable to run for public office and even faced the risk of deportation. Therefore, on 25 February 1932, the interior minister of Brunswick who was a member of the NSDAP appointed Hitler as administrator for the state's delegation to the Reichsrat in Berlin, making Hitler a citizen of Brunswick, and thus of Germany as well.
In 1932, Hitler ran against the aging President Paul von Hindenburg in the presidential elections. The viability of his candidacy was underscored by a 27 January 1932 speech to the Industry Club in Düsseldorf, which won him support from a broad swath of Germany's most powerful industrialists. However, Hindenburg had broad support of various nationalist, monarchist, Catholic, and republican parties and even some social democrats. Hitler used the campaign slogan "''Hitler über Deutschland''" (Hitler over Germany), a reference to his political ambitions, and to his campaigning by aircraft. Hitler came in second in both rounds of the election, garnering more than 35% of the vote in the final election. Although he lost to Hindenburg, this election established Hitler as a credible force in German politics.
In September 1931, Hitler's niece Geli Raubal committed suicide with Hitler's gun in his Munich apartment. Geli was believed to be in a romantic relationship with Hitler, and it is believed that her death was a source of deep, lasting pain for him.
Appointment as Chancellor
Because of the difficulties of forming a stable and effective government, two influential politicians, Franz von Papen and Alfred Hugenberg, as well as a number of industrialists and businessmen, including Hjalmar Schacht and Fritz Thyssen wrote to Hindenburg, urging him to appoint Hitler as leader of a government "independent from parliamentary parties" which could turn into a movement that would "enrapture millions of people."After two parliament elections—in July and November 1932—had failed to result in a majority government, President Hindenburg eventually and reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler chancellor of a coalition government formed by the NSDAP and Hugenberg's party, the DNVP. The influence of the NSDAP in parliament was thought to be limited by an alliance of conservative cabinet ministers, most notably by von Papen as Vice-Chancellor and by Hugenberg as Minister of the Economy. The only other NSDAP member besides Hitler, Wilhelm Frick, was given the relatively powerless interior ministry. However, as a concession to the NSDAP, Göring, who was head of the Prussian police at the time, was named minister without portfolio. So although von Papen intended to install Hitler merely as a figurehead, the NSDAP gained key political positions.
On 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor during a brief and simple ceremony in Hindenburg's office. Hitler's first speech as Chancellor took place on 10 February. The Nazis' seizure of power subsequently became known as the ''Machtergreifung'' or ''Machtübernahme''.
Reichstag fire and March elections
As chancellor, Hitler worked against attempts by his political opponents to build a majority government. Because of the political stalemate, Hitler asked President Hindenburg to dissolve the ''Reichstag'' again, and elections were scheduled for early March. On 27 February 1933, the ''Reichstag'' building was set on fire, and since a Dutch independent communist was found in the burning building, a communist plot was blamed for the fire. The central government responded with the ''Reichstag'' Fire Decree of 28 February, which suspended basic rights, including ''habeas corpus''. In particular, activities of the German Communist Party were suppressed, and communist party members were arrested, forced to flee, or murdered.Besides political campaigning, the NSDAP used paramilitary violence and spread of anti-communist propaganda on the days preceding the election. On election day, 6 March 1933, the NSDAP increased its result to 43.9% of the vote, gaining the largest number of seats in parliament. However, Hitler's party failed to secure an absolute majority, thus again necessitating a coalition with the DNVP.
Day of Potsdam and the Enabling Act
On 21 March 1933, the new ''Reichstag'' was constituted with an opening ceremony held at Potsdam's garrison church. This ''Day of Potsdam'' was staged to demonstrate reconciliation and unity between the revolutionary Nazi movement and ''Old Prussia'' with its elites and perceived virtues. Hitler appeared in a tail coat and humbly greeted the aged President Hindenburg.In the Nazis' quest for full political control and because they had failed to gain an absolute majority in the prior parliamentary election, Hitler's government brought the ''Ermächtigungsgesetz'' (Enabling Act) to a vote in the newly elected ''Reichstag''. The aim of this move was to give Hitler's cabinet full legislative powers for a period of four years. Although such a bill was not unprecedented, this act was different since it allowed for deviations from the constitution. Since the bill required a ⅔ majority to pass, the government needed the support of other parties. The position of the Centre Party, the third largest party in the ''Reichstag'', turned out to be decisive: under the leadership of Ludwig Kaas, the party decided to vote for the Enabling Act. It did so in return for the government's oral guarantees of the Church's liberty, the concordats signed by German states, and the continued existence of the Centre Party.
On 23 March, the ''Reichstag'' assembled in a replacement building under extremely turbulent circumstances. Several SA men served as guards inside, while large groups outside the building shouted slogans and threats toward the arriving members of parliament. Kaas announced that the Centre Party would support the bill with "concerns put aside", while Social Democrat Otto Wels denounced the act in his speech. At the end of the day, all parties except Social Democrats voted in favour of the bill—the Communists, as well as several Social Democrats, were barred from attending the vote. The Enabling Act, along with the ''Reichstag'' Fire Decree, transformed Hitler's government into a ''de facto'' dictatorship.
Removal of remaining limits
Having achieved full control over the legislative and executive branches of government, Hitler and his political allies embarked on systematic suppression of the remaining political opposition. After the dissolution of the Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) was also banned and all its assets seized. The Steel Helmets were placed under Hitler's leadership with some autonomy as an auxiliary police force. On 1 May, demonstrations were held, and the SA stormtroopers demolished trade union offices. On 2 May 1933, all trade unions in the country were forced to dissolve, and were replaced with a new organisation of "trade unions", uniting workers, administrators, and company owners. This new trade union reflected the concept of ''national socialism'' in the spirit of Hitler's "Volksgemeinschaft" (community of all German people).
Also the Catholic Church, to which roughly 50 % of the German people belonged, was forced to support Hitler: there was an early "Concordat" with the Vatican, but nonetheless the large Centre Party of the catholics was dissolved, as most other ones. On 14 July 1933, Hitler's Nazi Party was declared the only legal party in Germany. Hitler used the SA to pressure Hugenberg into resigning, and proceeded to politically isolate Vice-Chancellor von Papen. The demands of the SA for more political and military power caused much anxiety among military, industrial and political leaders. Hitler was prompted to purge the entire SA leadership, including Ernst Röhm, and other political adversaries (such as, Gregor Strasser and former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher). These actions took place from 30 June to 2 July 1934, in what became known as the Night of the Long Knives. While some Germans were shocked by the killing, many others saw Hitler as the one who restored "order" to the country.
On 2 August 1934, President von Hindenburg died. In contravention to the Weimar Constitution, calling for presidential elections, and following a law passed the previous day in anticipation of Hindenburg's imminent death, Hitler's cabinet declared the presidency vacant and transferred the powers of the head of state to Hitler as ''Führer und Reichskanzler'' (leader and chancellor). This removed the last legal remedy by which Hitler could be dismissed, and nearly all institutional checks and balances on his power. Hitler's move also violated the Enabling Act, which had barred tampering with the office of the presidency.
On 19 August, the merger of the presidency with the chancellorship was approved by a plebiscite with support from 84.6% of the electorate.
As head of state, Hitler now became Supreme Commander of the armed forces. The traditional loyalty oath of soldiers and sailors was altered to affirm loyalty directly to Hitler rather than to the office of commander-in-chief.
In 1938, in the wake of two scandals Hitler brought the armed forces under his direct control by forcing the resignation of his War Minister (formerly Defence Minister), Werner von Blomberg on evidence that Blomberg's new wife had a criminal past. Hitler and his allies also removed army commander Werner von Fritsch on suspicion of homosexuality. Hitler replaced the Ministry of War with the ''Oberkommando der Wehrmacht'' (High Command of the Armed Forces, or OKW), headed by the pliant General Wilhelm Keitel.
Third Reich
Having consolidated and concentrated his political powers, Hitler proceeded to suppress or eliminate his opposition by a process termed ''Gleichschaltung'' ("bringing into line"). He also tried to gain additional public support by vowing to reverse the effects of the Depression and the Versailles treaty.
Economy and culture
Increased economic activities were enabled largely by debt flotation (refinancing long term debts into cheaper short term debts) and expansion of the military. For example, Hitler's reconstruction and rearmament were financed with currency manipulations by Hjalmar Schacht, including credits through the Mefo bills.Nazi policies strongly encouraged women to bear children and stay at home. In a September 1934 speech to the National Socialist Women's Organization, Hitler argued that for the German woman her "world is her husband, her family, her children, and her home." The Cross of Honor of the German Mother was bestowed on women bearing four or more children. The unemployment rate fell substantially, mostly through arms production and women leaving the workforce.
Hitler oversaw one of the largest infrastructure-improvement campaigns in German history, leading to the construction of dams, autobahns, railroads, and other civil works. However, these programmes lowered the overall standard of living of workers who earlier had been unaffected by the chronic unemployment of the later Weimar Republic; wages were slightly reduced in pre–World War II years, while the cost of living was increased by 25%.
Hitler's government sponsored architecture on an immense scale, with Albert Speer becoming the first architect of the Reich, instrumental in implementing Hitler's classicist reinterpretation of German culture. In 1936, Hitler opened the summer Olympic games in Berlin. Hitler also made some contributions to the design of the Volkswagen Beetle and charged Ferdinand Porsche with its design and construction.
On 20 April 1939, a lavish celebration was held for Hitler's 50th birthday, featuring military parades, visits from foreign dignitaries, thousands of flaming torches and Nazi banners.
One question concerns the aspect of modernization in Hitler's economic policies. Historians such as David Schoenbaum and Henry Ashby Turner argue that Hitler's social and economic policies were modernization that had anti-modern goals. Others, including Rainer Zitelmann, have contended that Hitler had the deliberate strategy of pursuing a revolutionary modernization of German society.
Rearmament and new alliances
On 3 February 1933, in a meeting with German military leaders, Hitler spoke of "conquest for ''Lebensraum'' in the East and its ruthless Germanisation" as his ultimate foreign policy objectives. In March 1933, a major statement by the State Secretary at the ''Auswärtiges Amt'' (Foreign Office), Prince Bernhard Wilhelm von Bülow, of German foreign policy aims was issued. It advocated ''Anschluss'' with Austria, the restoration of Germany's national borders of 1914, rejection of Part V of the Treaty of Versailles, the return of the former German colonies in Africa, and a German zone of influence in Eastern Europe. Hitler found the goals in Bülow's memo to be too modest.In his "peace speeches" in the mid-1930s, Hitler stressed the peaceful goals of his policies and willingness to work within international agreements. At the first meeting of his Cabinet in 1933, however, Hitler prioritised military spending over unemployment relief. In October 1933, Hitler withdrew Germany from the League of Nations and the World Disarmament Conference, and his Foreign Minister Baron Konstantin von Neurath stated that the French demand for ''sécurité'' was a principal stumbling block. In March 1935, Hitler rejected Part V of the Versailles treaty by announcing an expansion of the German army to 600,000 members (six times the number stipulated in the Treaty of Versailles), including development of an Air Force (''Luftwaffe'') and increasing the size of the Navy (''Kriegsmarine''). Although Britain, France, Italy and the League of Nations condemned these plans, no country took actions to stop them.
On 18 June 1935, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement (AGNA) was signed, allowing German tonnage to increase to 35% of that of the British navy. Hitler called the signing of the AGNA "the happiest day of his life" as he believed the agreement marked the beginning of the Anglo-German alliance he had predicted in ''Mein Kampf''. France or Italy were not consulted before the signing, directly undermining the League of Nations and putting the Treaty of Versailles on the path towards irrelevance.
On 13 September 1935, Hitler ordered two civil servants, Dr. Bernhard Lösener and Franz Albrecht Medicus of the Interior Ministry to start drafting antisemitic laws for Hitler to bring to the floor of the ''Reichstag''. On 15 September, Hitler presented two laws—known as the Nuremberg Laws—before the ''Reichstag''. The laws banned marriage between non-Jewish and Jewish Germans and the employment of non-Jewish women under the age of 45 in Jewish households. The laws also deprived so-called "non-Aryans" of the benefits of German citizenship. In March 1936, Hitler reoccupied the demilitarized zone in the Rhineland, thus again violating the Versailles treaty. In addition, Hitler sent troops to Spain to support General Franco after receiving an appeal for help from Franco in July 1936. At the same time, Hitler continued with his efforts to create an Anglo-German alliance.
In August 1936, in response to a growing economic crisis caused by his rearmament efforts, Hitler issued the "Four-Year Plan Memorandum", ordering Hermann Göring to carry out the Four Year Plan to have Germany ready for war within the next four years. Hitler's "Four-Year Plan Memorandum" laid out an imminent all-out struggle between "Judeo-Bolshevism" and German National Socialism, which in Hitler's view required a committed effort of rearmament regardless of the economic costs.
On 25 October 1936, Count Galeazzo Ciano foreign minister of Benito Mussolini's government declared an axis between Germany and Italy, and on 25 November, Germany signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan. Britain, China, Italy and Poland were also invited to join the Anti-Comintern Pact, but only Italy signed in 1937. By late 1937, Hitler had abandoned his dream of an Anglo-German alliance, blaming "inadequate" British leadership.
On 5 November 1937, Hitler held a secret meeting at the Reich Chancellery with his war and foreign ministers and military chiefs. As recorded in the Hossbach Memorandum, Hitler stated his intention of acquiring ''Lebensraum'' ("living space") for the German people, and ordered to make preparations for war in the east no later than 1943. Hitler further stated that the conference minutes were to be regarded as his "political testament" in the event of his death. Hitler was also recorded as saying that the crisis of the German economy had reached a point that a severe decline in living standards in Germany could only be stopped by a policy of military aggression and seizing Austria and Czechoslovakia. Moreover, Hitler urged for quick action before Britain and France obtained a permanent lead in the arms race.
In early 1938, Hitler asserted his control of the military-foreign policy apparatus through the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair and the abolition of the War Ministry and its replacement by the OKW. He also dismissed Neurath as Foreign Minister on 4 February 1938, and assumed the role and title of the ''Oberster Befehlshaber der Wehrmacht'' (supreme commander of the armed forces). It has been argued that from early 1938 onwards, Hitler was not carrying out a foreign policy that increased the risk of war, but that he was carrying out a foreign policy that had war as its ultimate aim.
The Holocaust
One of Hitler's central and most controversial ideologies was the concept of so-called racial hygiene. Hitler's eugenic policies initially targeted children with physical and developmental disabilities in a programme dubbed Action T4.Hitler's idea of ''Lebensraum'' espoused in ''Mein Kampf'', focused on acquiring new territory for German settlement in Eastern Europe. The ''Generalplan Ost'' ("General Plan for the East") provided that the population of occupied Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union was to be partially deported to West Siberia, used as slave labour and eventually murdered; the conquered territories were to be colonized by German or "Germanized" settlers.
Between 1939 and 1945, the SS, assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries, systematically killed 11–14 million people, including about six million Jews representing two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe. These killings took place, for example, in concentration camps, ghettos, and through mass executions. Many victims of the Holocaust were gassed to death, whereas others died of starvation or disease while working as slave labourers.
Hitler's policies also resulted in the systematic killings of Poles and Soviet prisoners of war, communists and other political opponents, homosexuals, Roma, the physically and mentally disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, Adventists, and trade unionists. One of the largest centres of mass-killing was the extermination camp complex of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Hitler never appeared to have visited the concentration camps and did not speak publicly about the killings.
The Holocaust (the "''Endlösung der jüdischen Frage''" or "Final Solution of the Jewish Question") was organised and executed by Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich. The records of the Wannsee Conference—held on 20 January 1942 and led by Reinhard Heydrich with fifteen senior Nazi officials (including Adolf Eichmann) participating—provide the clearest evidence of the systematic planning for the Holocaust. On 22 February, Hitler was recorded saying to his associates, "we shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jews".
Although no specific order from Hitler authorising the mass killings has surfaced, he approved the ''Einsatzgruppen'', killing squads that followed the German army through Poland and Russia, and he was well informed about their activities. Evidence also suggests that in the fall of 1941, Himmler and Hitler decided to use gassing for the mass killings. During interrogations by Soviet intelligence officers declassified over fifty years later, Hitler's valet, Heinz Linge, and his military aide, Otto Günsche, had stated that Hitler had a direct interest in the development of gas chambers."
World War II
Early diplomatic successes
Alliance with Japan
In February 1938, upon advice from his newly appointed Foreign Minister, the strongly pro-Japanese Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler ended the Sino-German alliance with the Republic of China to enter instead into an alliance with the more modern and powerful Japan. Hitler announced German recognition of Manchukuo, the Japanese-occupied state in Manchuria, and renounced German claims to the former colonies in the Pacific held by Japan. Hitler also ordered an end to arms shipments to China, and recalled all German officers working with the Chinese Army. In retaliation, Chinese General Chiang Kai-shek cancelled all Sino-German economic agreements, depriving the Germans of Chinese raw materials such as tungsten and limiting the efforts of German rearmament.
Austria and Czechoslovakia
On 12 March 1938, Hitler declared unification of Austria with Germany in the ''Anschluss''. Hitler then turned his attention to the ethnic Germans population of Sudetenland districts of Czechoslovakia.On 28–29 March 1938, Hitler held a series of secret meetings in Berlin with Konrad Henlein of the Sudeten ''Heimfront'' (Home Front), the largest of the ethnic German parties of the Sudetenland. Both men agreed that Henlein would demand increased autonomy for Sudeten Germans from the Czechoslovakian government, thus providing a pretext for German military action against Czechoslovakia. In April 1938, Henlein told the foreign minister of Hungary that "whatever the Czech government might offer, he would always raise still higher demands ... he wanted to sabotage an understanding by all means because this was the only method to blow up Czechoslovakia quickly". In private, Hitler considered the Sudeten issue unimportant; his real intention was a war of conquest against Czechoslovakia. In April 1938, Hitler ordered the OKW to prepare for ''Fall Grün'' (Case Green), the codename for an invasion of Czechoslovakia. As a result of intense French and British diplomatic pressure, Czechoslovakian President Edvard Beneš unveiled on 5 September 1938, the "Fourth Plan" for constitutional reorganization of his country, which agreed to most of Henlein's demands for Sudeten autonomy. Henlein's ''Heimfront'' responded to Beneš' offer with a series of violent clashes with the Czechoslovakian police that led to the declaration of martial law in certain Sudeten districts.
In light of Germany's dependence on imported oil, and that a confrontation with Britain over the Czechoslovakian dispute could curtail Germany's oil supplies, Hitler called off ''Fall Grün'', originally planned for 1 October 1938. On 29 September 1938, a one-day conference was held in Munich attended by Hitler, Chamberlain, Daladier and Mussolini that led to the Munich Agreement, which gave in to Hitler's ostensible demands by handing over the Sudetenland districts to Germany.
Chamberlain was satisfied with the Munich conference, calling the outcome "peace for our time", while Hitler was angered about his missed opportunity for war in 1938. Hitler expressed his disappointment over the Munich Agreement in a speech on 9 October 1938 in Saarbrücken. In Hitler's view, the British-brokered peace, although favourable to ostensible German demands, was a diplomatic defeat for him, which spurred Hitler's intent of limiting British power to pave the way for the eastern expansion of Germany. However, as a result of the summit, Hitler was selected ''Time'' magazine's Man of the Year for 1938.
In late 1938 and early 1939, the continuing economic crisis caused by the rearmament efforts forced Hitler to make major defence cuts. On 30 January 1939, Hitler made an "Export or die" speech, calling for a German economic offensive, to increase German foreign exchange holdings to pay for raw materials such as high-grade iron needed for military weapons.
"One thing I should like to say on this day which may be memorable for others as well for us Germans: In the course of my life I have very often been a prophet, and I have usually been ridiculed for it. During the time of my struggle for power it was in the first instance the Jewish race which only received my prophecies with laughter when I said I would one day take over the leadership of the State, and that of the whole nation, and that I would then among many other things settle the Jewish problem. Their laughter was uproarious, but I think that for some time now they have been laughing on the other side of the face. Today I will be once more the prophet. If the international Jewish financiers outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the bolshevisation of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!"
On 15 March 1939, in violation of the Munich accord and possibly as a result of the deepening economic crisis requiring additional assets, Hitler eventually ordered the ''Wehrmacht'' to invade Prague, and from Prague Castle proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate.
Start of World War II
In private discussions in 1939, Hitler described Britain as the main enemy that had to be defeated. In his view, Poland's obliteration as a sovereign nation was the necessary prelude to that goal by securing the eastern flank and also adding to Germany's ''Lebensraum''. As part of his anti-British stance, Hitler wanted Poland to be either a German satellite state or otherwise neutralized to secure the ''Reich''s eastern flank and to evade the effects of a possible British blockade. Initially, Hitler favoured the idea of a satellite state, which was however rejected by the Polish government. Therefore, Hitler decided to invade and destroy Polish sovereignty and independence, and he made this the main German foreign policy goal of 1939. Hitler was offended by the British "guarantee" of Polish independence issued on 31 March 1939, and told his associates that "I shall brew them a devil's drink". In a speech in Wilhelmshaven for the launch of the battleship ''Tirpitz'' on 1 April 1939, Hitler first threatened to denounce the Anglo-German Naval Agreement if the British persisted with their "encirclement" policy he perceived by the British guarantee of Polish independence. On 3 April 1939, Hitler ordered the military to start preparing for ''Fall Weiss'' (Case White), the plan for a German invasion on 25 August 1939. This was followed by a speech before the ''Reichstag'' on 28 April 1939, in which Hitler renounced both the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact. In August 1939, Hitler spoke to his generals that his original plan for 1939 had to "... establish an acceptable relationship with Poland in order to fight against the West" but since Poland refused to become a German satellite, Hitler believed he had no choice other than wiping Poland off the map.Hitler was initially concerned that a military attack against Poland could result in a premature war with Britain. However, Hitler's foreign minister—and former Ambassador to London—Joachim von Ribbentrop assured him that neither Britain nor France would honour their commitments to Poland, and that a German–Polish war would only be a limited regional war. Ribbentrop claimed that in December 1938 the French foreign minister, Georges Bonnet, had stated that France considered Eastern Europe as Germany's exclusive sphere of influence, and Ribbentrop also showed Hitler diplomatic cables that supported his analysis. The German Ambassador in London, Herbert von Dirksen, supported Ribbentrop's analysis with a dispatch in August 1939, reporting that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain knew "the social structure of Britain, even the conception of the British Empire, would not survive the chaos of even a victorious war", and so would back down. Accordingly, on 21 August 1939 Hitler ordered a military mobilization solely against Poland.
Hitler's plans for a military campaign in Poland in late August or early September required Soviet tacit support, resulting in the Munich agreement on 23 August 1939. The non-aggression pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) between Germany and the Soviet Union led by Joseph Stalin, included secret protocols with an agreement to partition Poland between the two countries. In response to the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact—and contrary to the prediction of Ribbentrop that the newly formed pact would severe Anglo-Polish ties—Britain and Poland signed the Anglo-Polish alliance on 25 August 1939. This, along with news from Italy that Mussolini would not honour the Pact of Steel, caused Hitler to postpone the attack on Poland from 25 August to 1 September. In the days before the start of the war, Hitler tried to manoeuvre the British into neutrality by offering a non-aggression guarantee to the British Empire on 25 August 1939 and by having Ribbentrop present a last-minute peace plan with an impossibly short time limit in an effort to then blame the war on British and Polish inaction.
As a pretext for a military aggression against Poland, Hitler claimed the Free City of Danzig and the right for extra-territorial roads across the Polish Corridor, which Germany formerly had ceded under the Versailles treaty. Despite his concerns over a possible British intervention, Hitler was ultimately not deterred from his aim of invading Poland, and on 1 September 1939, Germany invaded western Poland. In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September. This surprised Hitler, prompting him to turn to Ribbentrop and angrily ask "Now what?" However, France and Britain did not act on their declarations immediately, and on 17 September, Soviet forces invaded eastern Poland.
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The fall of Poland was followed by what contemporary journalists dubbed the "Phoney War," or ''Sitzkrieg'' ("sitting war"). Hitler meanwhile instructed the two newly appointed ''Gauleiters'' of north-western Poland, Albert Forster and Arthur Greiser, to "Germanize" the area, and promised them "There would be no questions asked" about how this "Germanization" was accomplished. Forster and Greiser held different views on how to interpret Hitler's orders. Whereas Forster had local Poles sign forms, stating that they had German blood with no further documentation, Greiser carried out a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign on the Polish population in his purview. Greiser then complained to Hitler that Forster was allowing thousands of Poles to be accepted as "racial" Germans thus, in Greiser's view, endangering German "racial purity". However, Hitler merely told Himmler and Greiser to take up their difficulties with Forster, and not to involve him. Hitler's handling of the Forster–Greiser dispute has been advanced as an example of Ian Kershaw's theory of "Working Towards the Führer", namely that Hitler issued vague instructions, and allowed his subordinates to work out policies on their own.
Another dispute broke out between different factions, with one represented by ''Reichsführer'' SS Heinrich Himmler and Arthur Greiser championing and carrying out ethnic cleansing in Poland, and another representing Hermann Göring and Hans Frank, calling for turning Poland into the "granary" of the ''Reich''. The dispute was initially settled in favour of the Göring-Frank view of economic exploitation, which ended economically disruptive mass expulsions, at a conference held at Göring's Karinhall estate on 12 February 1940. On 15 May 1940, however, Himmler presented Hitler with a memo entitled "Some Thoughts on the Treatment of Alien Population in the East", which called for expulsion of the entire Jewish population of Europe into Africa and reducing the remainder of the Polish population to a "leaderless class of labourers". Hitler called Himmler's memo "good and correct", scuttling the so-called Karinhall agreement and implementing the Himmler–Greiser viewpoint as German policy for the Polish population.
Hitler commenced building up military forces on Germany's western border, and in April 1940, German forces invaded Denmark and Norway. In May 1940, Hitler's forces attacked France, and also conquered Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium. These victories prompted Benito Mussolini to have Italy join forces with Hitler on 10 June 1940. France surrendered on 22 June 1940.
Britain, whose forces were forced to leave France by sea from Dunkirk, continued to fight alongside other British dominions in the Battle of the Atlantic. Hitler made overtures for peace to the British, now led by Winston Churchill, and when these were rejected Hitler ordered bombing raids on the United Kingdom. Hitler's prelude to a planned invasion of the UK were widespread aerial attacks in the Battle of Britain on Royal Air Force airbases and radar stations in South-East England. However, the German ''Luftwaffe'' failed to defeat the Royal Air Force.
On 27 September 1940, the Tripartite Pact was signed in Berlin by Saburō Kurusu of Imperial Japan, Hitler, and Ciano, and was later expanded to include Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. They were collectively known as the Axis powers. The purpose of the pact was to deter the United States from supporting the British. By the end of October 1940, air superiority for the invasion Operation Sea Lion could not be achieved, and Hitler ordered the nightly air raids of British cities, including London, Plymouth, and Coventry.
In the Spring of 1941, Hitler was distracted from his plans for the East by military activities in North Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East. In February, German forces arrived in Libya to bolster Italian presence. In April, Hitler launched the invasion of Yugoslavia, quickly followed by the invasion of Greece. In May, German forces were sent to support Iraqi rebel forces fighting against the British and to invade Crete. On 23 May, Hitler released Führer Directive No. 30.
A major historical debate about Hitler's foreign policy preceding the war in 1939 centred on two contrasting explanations: one, by the Marxist historian Timothy Mason, suggested that a structural economic crisis drove Hitler into a "flight into war", while another, by economic historian Richard Overy, explained Hitler's actions with non-economic motives. Historians such as William Carr, Gerhard Weinberg and Ian Kershaw have argued that a non-economic reason for Hitler's rush to war was Hitler's morbid and obsessive fear of an early death, and hence his feeling that he did not have long to accomplish his work.
Path to defeat
On 22 June 1941, contravening the Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact of 1939, three million German troops attacked the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. The invasion seized a huge area, including the Baltic states, Belarus, and Ukraine. However, the German advance was stopped barely short of Moscow in December 1941 by the Russian Winter and fierce Soviet resistance. The invasion failed to achieve the quick success Hitler had wanted.Some historians, such as Andreas Hillgruber, have argued that ''Operation Barbarossa'' was merely one stage of Hitler's ''Stufenplan'' (stepwise plan) for world conquest, which Hitler may have formulated in the 1920s. Others, such as John Lukacs, suggest that Hitler did not have a ''Stufenplan'', and that the invasion of the Soviet Union was an ''ad hoc'' move in response to Britain's refusal to surrender. Lukacs has argued that Winston Churchill had hoped that the Soviet Union might enter the war on the Allied side, and so to dash this hope and force a British surrender, Hitler had started Operation Barbarossa. On the other hand, Klaus Hildebrand has maintained that both Stalin and Hitler had planned to attack each other in 1941. Soviet troop concentrations on its western border in the spring of 1941 may have prompted Hitler to engage in a ''Flucht nach vorn'' ("flight forward", to get in front of an inevitable conflict). Viktor Suvorov, Ernst Topitsch, Joachim Hoffmann, Ernst Nolte, and David Irving have argued that the official reason for ''Barbarossa'' given by the German military was the real reason, i.e., a preventive war to avert an impending Soviet attack scheduled for July 1941. This theory, however, has been faulted; the American historian Gerhard Weinberg once compared the advocates of the preventive war theory to believers in "fairy tales".
The Wehrmacht invasion of the Soviet Union reached its peak on 2 December 1941 when the 258th Infantry Division advanced to within of Moscow, close enough to see the spires of the Kremlin. However, they were not prepared for the harsh conditions brought on by the first blizzards of winter, and Soviet forces drove German troops back over 320 kilometres (200 miles).
On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Four days later, Hitler's formal declaration of war against the United States officially engaged him in war against a coalition that included the world's largest empire (the British Empire), the world's greatest industrial and financial power (the United States), and the world's largest army (the Soviet Union).
On 18 December 1941, the ''Reichsführer-SS'' Heinrich Himmler met with Hitler, and in response to Himmler's question "''What to do with the Jews of Russia?''", Hitler's replied "''als Partisanen auszurotten''" ("exterminate them as partisans"). The Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer has commented that the remark is probably as close as historians will ever get to a definitive order from Hitler for the genocide carried out during the Holocaust.
In late 1942, German forces were defeated in the second battle of El Alamein, thwarting Hitler's plans to seize the Suez Canal and the Middle East. In February 1943, the Battle of Stalingrad ended with the destruction of the German 6th Army. Thereafter came the Battle of Kursk. Hitler's military judgment became increasingly erratic, and Germany's military and economic position deteriorated along with Hitler's health. Ian Kershaw and others believe that Hitler may have suffered from Parkinson's disease. Syphilis has also been suspected as a cause of at least some of his symptoms.
Following the allied invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky) in 1943, Mussolini was deposed by Pietro Badoglio, who surrendered to the Allies. Throughout 1943 and 1944, the Soviet Union steadily forced Hitler's armies into retreat along the Eastern Front. On 6 June 1944, the Western Allied armies landed in northern France in what was one of the largest amphibious operations in history, Operation Overlord. Objective observers in the German army then knew that defeat was inevitable, and some plotted to remove Hitler from power.
Attempted assassination
There were seventeen planned attempts or plans to assassinate Hitler from 1939–1945, some which proceeded to significant degrees. The most famous assassination attempt on Hitler's life came from within Germany during World War II and was at least partly driven by the prospect of an increasingly imminent defeat of Germany in the war.In July 1944, as part of Operation Valkyrie or 20 July plot, Claus von Stauffenberg planted a bomb in Hitler's headquarters, the Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) at Rastenburg. Hitler narrowly survived because someone had unknowingly moved the briefcase that contained the bomb by pushing it behind a leg of the heavy conference table. When the bomb exploded, the table deflected much of the blast away from Hitler. Later, Hitler ordered savage reprisals, resulting in the executions of more than 4,900 people.
Defeat and death
By late 1944, the Red Army had driven the German army back into Western Europe, and the Western Allies were advancing into Germany. After being informed of the twin defeats in his Ardennes Offensive at his Adlerhorst command complex – Operation ''Wacht am Rhein'' and Operation ''Nordwind'' – Hitler realized that Germany was about to lose the war, but he did not permit an orderly retreat of his armies. His hope was to negotiate peace with America and Britain, buoyed by the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on 12 April 1945. Hitler ordered the destruction of all German industrial infrastructure before it could fall into Allied hands; he also acted on his view that Germany's military failures had forfeited its right to survive as a nation. Execution of this scorched earth plan was entrusted to arms minister Albert Speer, who, however, quietly disobeyed the order.
On 20 April 1945, Hitler celebrated his 56th birthday in the ''Führerbunker'' ("Führer's shelter") below the ''Reichskanzlei'' (Reich Chancellery). The garrison commander of the besieged ''Festung Breslau'' ("fortress Breslau"), General Hermann Niehoff, had chocolates distributed to his troops in honour of Hitler's birthday.
By 21 April, Georgi Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front had broken through the last defences of German General Gotthard Heinrici's Army Group Vistula during the Battle of the Seelow Heights. Facing little resistance, the Soviets advanced into the outskirts of Berlin. In denial of his increasingly dire situation, Hitler placed his hopes on the units commanded by Waffen SS General Felix Steiner, the ''Armeeabteilung Steiner'' ("Army Detachment Steiner"). Although "Army Detachment Steiner" was more than a corps it was less than an army. Hitler ordered Steiner to attack the northern flank of the salient made up of of Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front. At the same time, the German Ninth Army, which had been pushed south of the salient, was ordered to attack northward in a pincer attack.
Late on 21 April, Gotthard Heinrici called Hans Krebs, chief of the ''Oberkommando des Heeres'' (Supreme Command of the Army or OKH), to inform him that Hitler's defence plans could not be implemented. Heinrici also told Krebs to impress upon Hitler the need to withdraw the 9th Army from its position.
On 22 April, during military conference, Hitler asked about Steiner's offensive. After a long silence, Hitler was told that the attack had never been launched and that the Russians had broken through into Berlin. This news prompted Hitler to ask everyone except Wilhelm Keitel, Hans Krebs, Alfred Jodl, Wilhelm Burgdorf, and Martin Bormann to leave the room. Hitler then launched a tirade against the treachery and incompetence of his commanders, culminating in Hitler's declaration—for the first time—that the war was lost. Hitler announced that he would stay in Berlin, to direct the defence of the city and then shoot himself.
Before the day ended, Hitler again found fresh hope in a new plan that included General Walther Wenck's Twelfth Army. This new plan had Wenck turn his army – currently facing the Americans to the west – and attack towards the east to relieve Berlin. The Twelfth Army was to link up with the Ninth Army and break through to the city. Wenck did attack and made temporary contact with the Potsdam garrison. But the link with the Ninth Army, like the plan in general, was unsuccessful.
On 23 April, Joseph Goebbels made the following proclamation to the people of Berlin:
Also on 23 April, Göring sent a telegram from ''Berchtesgaden'' in Bavaria, arguing that since Hitler was cut off in Berlin, he, Göring, should assume leadership of Germany. Göring set a time limit after which he would consider Hitler incapacitated. Hitler responded angrily by having Göring arrested, and when writing his will on 29 April, Göring was removed from all his positions in the government. Hitler appointed General der Artillerie Helmuth Weidling as the commander of the Berlin Defence Area, replacing Lieutenant General (''Generalleutnant'') Helmuth Reymann and Colonel (''Oberst'') Ernst Kaether. Hitler also appointed Waffen-SS Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke the (Kommandant) Battle Commander for the defence of the government district (Zitadelle sector) that included the Reich Chancellery and Führerbunker.
On 27 April, Berlin became completely cut off from the rest of Germany. As the Soviet forces closed in, Hitler's followers urged him to flee to the mountains of Bavaria to make a last stand in the national redoubt. However, Hitler was determined to either live or die in the capital.
On 28 April, Hitler discovered that Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler was trying to discuss surrender terms with the Western Allies (through the Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte). Hitler ordered Himmler's arrest and had Hermann Fegelein (Himmler's SS representative at Hitler's HQ in Berlin) shot. Adding to Hitler's woes was Wenck's report that his Twelfth Army had been forced back along the entire front and that his forces could no longer support Berlin.
After midnight on 29 April, Hitler married Eva Braun in a small civil ceremony in a map room within the Führerbunker. Antony Beevor stated that after Hitler hosted a modest wedding breakfast with his new wife, he then took secretary Traudl Junge to another room and dictated his last will and testament. Hitler signed these documents at 4:00 am. The event was witnessed and documents signed by Hans Krebs, Wilhelm Burgdorf, Joseph Goebbels, and Martin Bormann. Hitler then retired to bed. That afternoon, Hitler was informed of the assassination of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, which presumably increased his determination to avoid capture.
On 30 April 1945, after intense street-to-street combat, when Soviet troops were within a block or two of the Reich Chancellery, Hitler and Braun committed suicide; Braun by biting into a cyanide capsule and Hitler by shooting himself with his 7.65 mm Walther PPK pistol. Hitler had at various times contemplated suicide, and the Walther was the same pistol that his niece, Geli Raubal had used in her suicide. The lifeless bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun were carried up the stairs and through the bunker's emergency exit to the bombed-out garden behind the Reich Chancellery where they were placed in a bomb crater and doused with petrol. The corpses were set on fire as the Red Army advanced and the shelling continued.
On 2 May, Berlin surrendered, and there were conflicting reports about what happened to Hitler's remains. Records in the Soviet archives— obtained after the fall of the Soviet Union—showed that the remains of Hitler, Eva Braun, Joseph and Magda Goebbels, the six Goebbels children, General Hans Krebs and Hitler's dogs, were repeatedly buried and exhumed. On 4 April 1970, a Soviet KGB team with detailed burial charts secretly exhumed five wooden boxes which had been buried at the SMERSH facility in Magdeburg. The remains from the boxes were thoroughly burned and crushed, after which the ashes were thrown into the Biederitz river, a tributary of the nearby Elbe.
According to the Russian Federal Security Service, a fragment of human skull stored in its archives and displayed to the public in a 2000 exhibition came from Hitler's remains. However, the authenticity of the skull fragment was challenged by historians and researchers, and DNA analysis conducted in 2009 showed the skull fragment to be that of a woman. Analysis of the sutures between the skull plates indicated that it belonged to a 20–40-year-old individual.
Legacy
Hitler's policies and orders resulted in the death of approximately 40 million people, including about 27 million in the Soviet Union. The actions of Hitler, and of the Hitler's ideology, Nazism, are almost universally regarded as gravely immoral. Historians, philosophers, and politicians have often applied the word ''evil'' to describe Hitler's ideology and its outcomes. Historical and cultural portrayals of Hitler in the west are overwhelmingly condemnatory. For example, the denial of the Holocaust along with the display of Nazi symbols such as swastikas, is prohibited by law in Germany and Austria.Outside of Hitler's birthplace in Braunau am Inn, Austria, the Memorial Stone Against War and Fascism is engraved with the following message: }}
Loosely translated it reads: "For peace, freedom // and democracy // never again fascism // millions of dead remind [us]"
Following WWII the toothbrush moustache fell out of favour in the West because of its strong association with Hitler, earning it the nickname "Hitler moustache". The use of the name "Adolf" also declined in post-war years.
Hitler and his legacy are occasionally described in more neutral or even favourable terms. Former Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat spoke of his 'admiration' of Hitler in 1953, when he was a young man, but it is possible that Sadat's views were shaped mainly by his anti-British sentiments. Louis Farrakhan has referred to Hitler as a "very great man". Bal Thackeray, leader of the right-wing Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena party in the Indian state of the Maharashtra, declared in 1995 that he was an admirer of Hitler. Friedrich Meinecke, the German historian, said of Hitler's life that "it is one of the great examples of the singular and incalculable power of personality in historical life".
Religious views
Hitler's parents were Roman Catholics, but after leaving home he never attended Mass or received the sacraments. Hitler favoured aspects of Protestantism that suited his own views. However, he also adopted some elements of the Catholic Church's hierarchical organization, liturgy and phraseology in his politics. After his move to Germany, where Catholic and Protestant churches are largely financed through a church tax, Hitler did not leave his church, leading the historian Richard Steigmann-Gall to conclude that Hitler "can be classified as Catholic", but that "nominal church membership is a very unreliable gauge of actual piety in this context."In public, Hitler often praised Christian heritage, German Christian culture, and professed a belief in an "Aryan" Jesus Christ, a Jesus who fought against the Jews. In his speeches and publications, Hitler spoke of his interpretation of Christianity as a central motivation for his antisemitism, stating that "As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice." In private, Hitler was more critical of traditional Christianity, considering it a religion fit only for slaves; he admired the power of Rome but maintained a severe hostility towards its teaching. Hitler's critical views on Catholicism resonated with Streicher's contention that the Catholic establishment was allying itself with the Jews. In light of these private statements, for John S. Conway and many other historians, it is beyond doubt that Hitler held a "fundamental antagonism" towards the Christian churches. However, some researchers have questioned the authenticity of Hitler's private statements; for instance, Hermann Rauschning's ''Hitler speaks'' is considered by most historians to be an invention.
In the political relations with the churches in Germany, however, Hitler readily adopted a strategy "that suited his immediate political purposes". Hitler had a general plan, even before his rise to power, to destroy Christianity within the Reich. The leader of the Hitler Youth stated that "the destruction of Christianity was explicitly recognized as a purpose of the National Socialist movement" from the start, but "considerations of expedience made it impossible" publicly to express this extreme position. His intention was to wait until the war was over to destroy the influence of Christianity. a belief system purged of what he objected to in orthodox Christianity, and featuring racist elements. By 1940, however, Hitler had abandoned advocating even the syncretist idea of a positive Christianity. Hitler maintained that the "''terrorism in religion is, to put it briefly, of a Jewish dogma, which Christianity has universalized and whose effect is to sow trouble and confusion in men's minds.''"
Hitler articulated his view on the relationship between religion and national identity as, "We do not want any other god than Germany itself. It is essential to have fanatical faith and hope and love in and for Germany".
Attitude towards occultism
Some researchers suggest that Hitler did not follow esoteric ideas, occultism, or Ariosophy, Others have suggested that Hitler's views, particularly on race, had been strongly influenced by works that promulgated a mystical superiority of the Germans; these works included the occult and antisemitic magazine ''Ostara'', whose publisher Lanz von Liebenfels claimed that Hitler had visited him in 1909 and had praised his work. Historians are divided on the question of the reliability of von Liebenfels' claim. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke considers his account reliable, Brigitte Hamann leaves the question open and Ian Kershaw, although questioning the degree to which Hitler was influenced by it, notes that, "Most likely, Hitler did read ''Ostara'', along with other racist pulp which was prominent on Vienna newspaper stands." Kershaw notes that it is usually accepted that Hitler did read and was influenced by this occult publication, pointing to Hitler's account of his conversion to antisemitism after reading antisemitic pamphlets.
Health
Hitler's health frequently has been the subject of speculation. It has been suggested that he suffered from irritable bowel syndrome, skin lesions, irregular heartbeat, Parkinson's disease, syphilis, tinnitus, and Asperger syndrome. Hitler also had dental problems—his personal dentist, Hugo Blaschke, had fitted a large dental bridge to Hitler's upper jaw in 1933, and in 1944, Blaschke removed the left rear section of the bridge to treat an infection of Hitler's gums that coincided with a sinus infection.From the mid-1930s, Hitler followed a largely vegetarian diet, and ate meat only occasionally. At social events, Hitler sometimes gave graphic accounts of the slaughter of animals in an effort to make his dinner guests shun meat. A fear of cancer (from which his mother died) is the most widely cited reason for Hitler's dietary habits. However, Hitler, an antivivisectionist, may have followed his selective diet out of a profound concern for animals. Martin Bormann had a greenhouse constructed near the ''Berghof'' (near ''Berchtesgaden'') to ensure a steady supply of fresh fruit and vegetables for Hitler throughout the war.
Hitler was a non-smoker and promoted aggressive anti-smoking campaigns throughout Germany. (See Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany.) Hitler strongly despised alcohol.
Syphilis
During the last years of his life, Hitler suffered from tremors and irregular heartbeat, which could have been symptoms of tertiary (late-stage) syphilis. Theodor Morell (a specialist venereologist) and another physician diagnosed Hitler with syphilis in early 1945 in a joint report to SS head Heinrich Himmler. Some historians have noted Hitler's preoccupation with syphilis in ''Mein Kampf'', calling it a "Jewish disease" and leading to speculation he may have contracted the disease himself. Since the 1870s, however, it was common for the völkisch right to associate Jews with diseases such as syphilis. Historian Robert Waite claims that Hitler tested negative on a Wassermann test in 1939; however, the test was prone to false-negative results. Regardless of Hitler's infection status, he lived in constant fear of the disease, and took treatment for it ignoring his physician's opinions. For example, Hitler may have discovered in 1908 that he was syphilitic, and this may have influenced his views on prostitution and similar societal features and spurred his intent to eliminate these perceived ills. In ''Mein Kampf'', he wrote about the temptation of prostitution and the spreading of syphilis, specifically volume 1, chapter 10, "Causes of the Collapse".The journalist Joseph Kessel reports that renowned masseur, Felix Kersten, in the winter of 1942 was shown a top-secret 26-page report that indicated that Hitler had contracted syphilis in his youth and was treated for it at a hospital in Pasewalk, Germany. In 1937, Hitler had first displayed late-stage symptoms, and by the start of 1942, progressive syphilitic paralysis (''Tabes dorsalis'') was occurring. Hitler was treated by Morell and his disease was kept as a state secret. The only people privy to the report's content were Martin Bormann and Hermann Göring.
Monorchism
It has been alleged that Hitler had monorchism, the medical condition of having only one testicle. Hitler's personal doctor, Johan Jambor, supposedly described this condition to a priest whose records were uncovered in 2008, 23 years after the doctor's death.Soviet journalist, Lev Bezymensky, allegedly involved in the Soviet autopsy of Hitler's remains, stated in a 1967 book that Hitler's left testicle had been missing, but he later admitted to have falsified this claim. Hitler had been examined by many doctors throughout his life, and no mention of this clinical condition has been discovered. Records show that he was wounded in 1916 during the Battle of the Somme, with some sources describing his injury as a wound to the groin.
Parkinson's disease
It has also been speculated Hitler had Parkinson's disease. Newsreel footage of Hitler show tremors of his hand and a shuffling walk, which began before the war and worsened towards the end of his life. Morell treated Hitler with a drug that was commonly used in 1945 to treat the condition.Ernst-Günther Schenck, working as emergency doctor in the Reich Chancellery during April 1945, also claimed Hitler might have had Parkinson's disease. However, Schenck saw Hitler only briefly on two occasions, and his diagnosis was formed at a time of immense stress and exhaustion, as he had been working in the surgery for several days without much sleep.
Other complaints
From the 1930s, Hitler suffered from stomach pains. In 1936, a non-cancerous polyp was removed from his throat and he developed eczema on his legs. He also suffered ruptured eardrums as a result of the 20 July plot bomb blast in 1944, and two hundred wood splinters had to be removed from his legs. Hitler's otologist observed that Hitler had developed tinnitus after the Röhm-Putsch, and considered it psychogenic in origin. Hitler treated the condition with the prescription-free lipid lecithin.
Addiction to amphetamine
Hitler began using amphetamine occasionally after 1937 and became addicted to the drug after the late summer of 1942. Albert Speer has linked Hitler's use of amphetamines with his increasingly inflexible decision making (for example, never to allow military retreats).
Historians' views
The German historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler dismisses theories that link the rise of Nazi Germany to Hitler's medical conditions and mental states. The theories about Hitler's medical condition are difficult to prove, and according them too much weight may have the effect of attributing many of the events and consequences of the Third Reich to the possibly impaired physical health of one individual. Ian Kershaw agrees that it is better to take a broader view of German history by seeking to examine what social forces led to the Third Reich and its policies rather than to pursue narrow explanations for the Holocaust and World War II based on only one person.
Sexuality
To the public, Hitler promoted his own image as that of a man without a domestic life, dedicated entirely to his political mission. However, he was engaged to Mimi Reiter in the 1920s, and later had a partner, Eva Braun. He had a close bond with his half-niece Geli Raubal, which may have included sexual relations, though there is no evidence that conclusively supports such a relationship. All three women attempted suicide, which has led to speculation that Hitler may have had sexual fetishes that affected the mental well-being of his close partners. Otto Strasser, a political opponent of Hitler, claimed that Hitler had urolagnia (sexual arousal by urine or urination), but Mimi Reiter has disputed this claim. Hitler may have also had a sexual relationship with British fascist, Unity Mitford.
Family
Paula Hitler, the last living member of Adolf Hitler's immediate family, died in 1960.The most prominent and longest-living closest relative was Adolf Hitler's nephew, William Patrick Hitler, the son of Adolf's half-brother, Alois Hitler Jr.
Over the years, various investigative reporters have attempted to track down other living relatives of Hitler. Many are presumed to be living inconspicuous lives and have changed their last name.
Hitler in media
Oratory and rallies
Hitler honed his oratory skills by giving speeches to military audiences in 1919 and 1920. He became adept at using populist themes targeted to his audience, including the use of popular scapegoats who could be blamed for the economic hardships of his listeners. Munitions minister and architect Albert Speer commented that Hitler was above all else an actor.
Recorded in private conversation
Hitler visited Finnish Field Marshal Mannerheim on 4 June 1942. During the visit, an engineer of the Finnish broadcasting company YLE, Thor Damen, recorded Hitler and Mannerheim in conversation. Damen did so secretly, since Hitler did not permit recordings of him off the record. The 11½ minutes-long recording is the only audio record of Hitler in casual conversation. Most of the recording is a monologue of Hitler, which he delivers in a slightly excited, but detached manner. Hitler concedes that he had underestimated the Soviet Union's ability to conduct effective warfare. Audio recordings of Hitler and Mannerheim's public and private talk (w/English text) are available online.
Documentaries during the Third Reich
Documentary films were another propaganda tool for Hitler. Hitler was involved and appeared in a series of films by the pioneering filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl via Universum Film AG (UFA):Hitler was the central figure of the first three films; they focused on the party rallies of the respective years and are considered propaganda films. For example, Leni Riefenstahl's ''Triumph of the Will'', shot during the 1934 Nuremberg Rally, shows Hitler from high and low angles, and only twice head-on. Some of the people in the film were paid actors, but most of the participants were not. Hitler also featured prominently in the ''Olympia'' film. Whether the latter is a propaganda film or a true documentary is still a subject of controversy, but it nonetheless perpetuated and spread the propaganda message of the 1936 Olympic Games, depicting Nazi Germany as a prosperous and peaceful country.
Television
As a prominent politician, Hitler was featured in many newsreels. His attendance at public functions, including the 1936 Olympic Games and Nuremberg Rallies, appeared on television broadcasts made between 1935 and 1939. These events, along with other programming that highlighted activity by public officials, were often repeated in public viewing rooms. Samples from a number of surviving television films from Nazi Germany were included in the 1999 documentary ''Das Fernsehen unter dem Hakenkreuz (Television Under the Swastika)''.
Documentaries post Third Reich
Films and series
Plays
See also
Footnotes
References
Further reading
External links
– real life footage in documentaries – as portrayed in film and TV|years=1933–1945}} |years=1934–1945}} Category:1889 births Category:1945 deaths Category:Antisemitism in Germany Category:Attempted assassination survivors Category:Austrian anti-communists Category:Austrian emigrants Category:Austrian expatriates in Germany Category:Austrian Nazis Category:Austrian painters Category:Chancellors of Germany Category:Conspiracy theorists Category:German anti-communists Category:German founders of automobile manufacturers Category:German military leaders Category:German military personnel of World War I Category:German painters Category:German people of Austrian descent Category:German people of World War II Category:German political writers Category:German politicians who committed suicide Category:German presidential candidates Category:Historians of fascism Category:Hitler family Category:Holocaust perpetrators Category:Leaders of political parties in Germany Category:Nazi leaders Category:Nazis who committed suicide Category:Nazis who participated in the Beer Hall Putsch Category:People convicted of treason against Germany Category:People from Braunau am Inn Category:Persecution of homosexuals Category:Political writers who committed suicide Category:Presidents of Germany Category:Recipients of German pardons Category:Recipients of the Iron Cross Category:Suicides by firearm in Germany Category:Suicides by poison Category:World War II political leaders
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| Name | Paul Robeson |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Paul Leroy Robeson |
| Born | April 09, 1898Princeton, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Died | January 23, 1976Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Instrument | Vocals |
| Genre | SpiritualsInternational folkMusicals |
| Occupation | Actor, concert singer, athlete, lawyer, social activist |
| Years active | 1917–63 |
| background | solo_singer }} |
| Name | Paul "Robey" Robeson |
|---|---|
| Position | End |
| Birth date | April 9, 1898 |
| Death date | January 23, 1976 |
| Heightft | 6 |
| Heightin | 3 |
| Weight | 219 |
| Debutyear | 1921 |
| Debutteam | Akron Pros |
| Finalyear | 1922 |
| Finalteam | Milwaukee Badgers |
| College | Rutgers |
| Teams | |
| Statseason | 1922 |
| Statlabel1 | Games played |
| Statvalue1 | 15 |
| Statlabel2 | Games started |
| Statvalue2 | 13 |
| Statlabel3 | TD |
| Statvalue3 | 1 |
| Nfl | ROB361120 |
| Collegehof | 10080 }} |
Paul Leroy Robeson (April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American concert singer (bass-baritone), recording artist, athlete and actor who became noted for his political radicalism and activism in the civil rights movement. Robeson was the first major concert star to popularize the performance of Negro spirituals. He was the first black actor of the 20th century to portray Shakespeare's ''Othello'' in a production with an otherwise all-white cast.
A nationally renowned football player from 1917 to the early 1920s, Robeson was an All-American athlete, and Phi Beta Kappa Society laureate during his years at Rutgers University. In 1923, Robeson drifted into amateur theater work, and within a decade he had become an international star of stage, screen, radio and film. Robeson was awarded the NAACP's Spingarn Medal, the Stalin Peace Prize and honorary memberships in over half a dozen trade unions. James Earl Jones, Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte have cited Robeson's lead film roles as being the first to display dignity for black actors and pride in African heritage. Though one of the most internationally famous people of the 20th century, Robeson was blacklisted during the Cold War and his activism was nearly erased from mainstream accounts of that period.
At the height of his career, Paul Robeson chose to become primarily a political artist. In 1950, Robeson's passport was revoked under the McCarran Act over his work in the anti-imperialism movement and what the U.S. State Department called Robeson's "frequent criticism while abroad of the treatment of blacks in the US." Under heavy and daily surveillance by both the FBI and the CIA and publicly condemned for his beliefs, Robeson's income fell dramatically and he was blacklisted from performing on stage, screen, radio and television. Robeson's right to travel was restored in 1958, but his already faltering health broke down under controversial circumstances in 1963. By 1965, he was forced into permanent retirement. He spent his final years in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, unapologetic about his political views and career. Advocates of Robeson's legacy have restored his name to history books and sports records, honoring his memory with posthumous recognitions.
Early life
Paul Robeson was born in Princeton, New Jersey in 1898. His father, William Drew Robeson I, was descended from the Igbo people of Nigeria, and had run away during the American Civil War from the Robeson plantation in North Carolina where he was born a slave. He served in the Union Army in Pennsylvania, earned a degree from Lincoln University (Pennsylvania), and became a minister of the gospel. His mother Maria Louisa Bustill was from a prominent black abolitionist Quaker family of mixed ancestry: African, Anglo-American, and Lenape.
From 1881 until 1901, William Robeson was minister of the Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church in Princeton. Robeson refused to bow to pressure from the "white residents of Princeton" to cease his tendency to "speak out against social injustice." Louisa Robeson was nearly blind from cataracts and died in a house fire in 1904 when her son Paul was six years old.
The Robesons had four other children: William Drew Robeson II, a physician who practiced in Washington, D.C.; Rev. Benjamin C. Robeson, Pastor of Mother AME Zion Church in NY City, the oldest Black Church in NY State; Reeve Robeson (called Reed); and Marian Robeson, who lived in Philadelphia. William Drew Robeson was said to be a stern disciplinarian when it came to the children's studies and behavior. When he was eight years old, Robeson moved with his family to Westfield, New Jersey, where he attended the public schools together with white children. In 1910, when the family relocated to Somerville, New Jersey, he continued to impress upon Paul that he could achieve anything that white people could.
Scholarship
Robeson was only the third African-American student accepted at Rutgers, and the only black student during his time on campus. Robeson was also one of three classmates at Rutgers accepted into Phi Beta Kappa in his third year, and one of four students selected in 1919 to Cap and Skull, Rutgers' honor society.
Campus clubs and racism
Paul Robeson was also active on the Rutgers debate team and in oratorical contests both on and off campus, winning the statewide prize four years in a row. He sang with the campus Glee club, but due to the racist climate at the time, he was not welcome to travel with the latter group out of town or at social events following its on-campus performances. He was elected to the Rutgers literary society, the Philoclean Society, but was not allowed to fully share in its festivities.
All-American and varsity sports
At Rutgers he also excelled as a sportsman. Robeson earned a total of 15 varsity letters in American football, baseball, basketball, and track and field. For his accomplishments as an end in football, he was named a first-team All-America in 1917 and 1918. He was Rutgers' first All-American football player (of any race). During scrimmages while Robeson initially tried out for the football team, he faced both racism and harsh physical injury: for instance, a senior member of the team injured Robeson's hand with a cleated foot, tearing off fingernails. He was benched on more than one occasion when Southern teams William and Mary and Georgia Tech refused to play against a black man.Though Robeson later said he gave thought to quitting, he persevered and was described by football coach Walter Camp as "the greatest defensive end to ever trot the gridiron." Lou Little of Columbia University football said of him, "there has never been a greater player in the history of football than Robeson."
Graduation honors
Chosen to be the 1919 class valedictorian, during his oration Robeson exhorted his classmates to "catch a new vision", while the "class prophecy" envisioned that he would become a governor of New Jersey by 1940 and "leader of the colored race in America." Robeson's senior thesis was entitled "The Fourteenth Amendment, the Sleeping Giant of the American Constitution", in which he expressed optimism about white intentions to end segregation. Sports historian Francis C. Harris wrote that Robeson "...established a level of excellence as a scholar-athlete that few others, if any, have ever attained."
Columbia Law School
After graduation from Rutgers, Robeson moved to Harlem and entered Columbia Law School. Between 1920 and 1923, Robeson helped pay his way through law school by working both as an athlete and as a performer.He played professional football in the American Professional Football Association (later called the National Football League) with the Akron Pros and Milwaukee Badgers. He served as assistant football coach at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. There he was initiated into Alpha Phi Alpha, the fraternity for African-American college men, of which Noble Sissle and W.E.B Du Bois were also members. He also played for the St. Christopher Club traveling basketball team during their 1918–19 season.
His first entry into stage performance was as a Columbia law student. He played Simon in ''Simon the Cyrenian'' at the Harlem YMCA in 1920, followed in 1922 by Jim in ''Taboo'' by Mary Hoyt Wiborg at the Sam Harris Theater in Harlem. Also in 1922, Eubie Blake heard Robeson sing casually and encouraged him to appear in his production of ''Shuffle Along'' and Lew Leslie's ''Plantation Revue'' as a member of the close-harmony singing quartet the Harmony Kings. The production of ''Taboo'', renamed ''Voodoo'', was taken to cities in Britain in summer 1922. Directed by Mrs Patrick Campbell, it gave greater prominence to Robeson's singing, which was praised by critics. In London, Robeson was able to meet with prominent African-American expatriates.
Robeson graduated from Columbia in 1923, in the same law school class as William O. Douglas — later a United States Supreme Court Justice. Robeson's academic record was not as stellar as it had been at Rutgers, and he had a mostly C average. He was not enthusiastic about the law after graduation. His broken tenure at the school due to his work in theater made him ineligible for the ''Columbia Law Review''. Editor-in-chief Charles Ascher in later years said that the "Southerners on the board would have put up a fight..."
Marriage and family
In August 1921, Robeson married Eslanda Cardozo Goode, who headed the pathology laboratory at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City. She came from a distinguished family of a mixed-race ancestry. Her father Cardozo Goode was related to the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo. Essie encouraged Robeson in his career and became his business manager.Early in their marriage, Eslanda learned that her husband was not dedicated to monogamy and domesticity. Wanting to retain her marriage and status as Robeson's wife, she tolerated his extramarital affairs while also having her own at times. Robeson felt that Essie was instrumental to his success both as his manager and his intellectual partner. Eslanda's diaries and their shared correspondence demonstrates that at times there was anger and recrimination on both sides of their partnership. Despite his ambivalence at times about marriage, Robeson knew that divorcing Eslanda would hurt his stature in the black community. In the 1930s, the couple began legal proceedings toward divorce when Robeson fell in love with Yolanda Jackson, a British woman, but the relationship ended abruptly. Eslanda and Robeson stayed together, continuing an open marriage until Eslanda died on December 23, 1965. Eslanda wrote the first biography of Paul Robeson, ''Paul Robeson: Negro''. Told in the third person, she wrote part fiction, part memoir about the problems in their marriage and Robeson's early life and career. She incorrectly added "Bustill" as Robeson's middle name in this book.
They had one son, Paul Robeson, Jr., born November 2, 1927. He has spent much of his life safeguarding his father's legacy by founding ''The Robeson Family Archives'' and ''The Paul Robeson Foundation''. Paul Robeson also had two grandchildren, David Robeson (1951–1998) and Susan Robeson (1953- ), who became a documentary filmmaker. In 1980, Susan Robeson published a pictorial biography of her grandfather.
Religious views
Robeson did not follow in his father's footsteps as a regular congregant in the African Methodist Episcopal church, but he had a lifelong reverence for the black church. In 1998, close family friend Bishop J. Clinton Hoggard, who eulogized Robeson at his funeral, stated, "He was a Christian, he believed in God, which is why he is one who could sing the great hymns of the church, they come out of his soul." In a 1929 entry in his diary, Robeson expressed the thought that his career and marriage were part of a "higher plan", writing: "God watches over me and guides me. He's with me and let's me fight my own battles and hopes I'll win." Later when his left-wing activism became controversial, accusations that he was a "'godless' Communist" were not accepted by his black churchgoing audiences, who felt he "personified the spirituals in his music". Robeson never expressed "even the remotest allegiance to 'materialistic atheism'". According to his biographer Martin Duberman, Robeson was "not a religious man in any formalistic sense ... nonetheless an intensely spiritual one, convinced that some higher force watched over him." In a 1958 BBC television interview, Robeson reminisced of his days growing up in his father's church, "every Sunday morning there would be a rolling up of a great sermon and 'bow down on bended knees, oh Lord and hail Mary' and it became very much like an opera."
Early career (1920–1928)
Robeson started working for the law firm of Stotesbury (a Rutger's alumnus) and Miner in New York City, assisting on a litigation trial over Jay Gould's estate. Though his brief was used in the Gould trial, Robeson, the only black person in the law firm, quit after a white secretary refused to take dictation from him, saying: "I never take dictation from a nigger."In the 1920s, Robeson found fame as an actor and singing star of both stage and radio with his bass voice and commanding presence. His voice could descend as low as C below the bass clef. Robeson and his accompanist and arranger Lawrence Brown were the first to bring spirituals to the concert stage; their association lasted through four decades.
Robeson was acclaimed for his 1924 Provincetown Playhouse performance in the title role of Eugene O'Neill's ''The Emperor Jones''. Charles Sidney Gilpin had premiered the role in 1920. He also gained recognition for his starring performance in the premier production of O'Neill's ''All God's Chillun Got Wings'' (1924). He portrayed the husband of an abusive white woman (played by Mary Blair). Resenting him, she destroys his promising career as a lawyer. The interracial marriage was controversial for many members of both black and white audiences. He next played Crown in the stage version of DuBose Heyward's novel ''Porgy''. This work was later adapted by George and Ira Gershwin as the opera ''Porgy and Bess''.
During his days at Columbia Law School, Robeson had sung professionally though giving little thought to a career. In 1924 when unable to whistle for a performance in ''Taboo'', he sang a spiritual instead, pleasing both the cast and audiences. He had reconnected with the accompanist and arranger Lawrence Brown in 1924, and they rapidly established a successful musical partnership. Robeson later credited Brown for guiding him "...to the beauty of my own folk music and to the music of all other Peoples so like our own."
Lawrence Brown had previously worked with the gospel singer Roland Hayes, and he had an extensive repertoire of African-American folk songs. His partnership with Robeson helped bring these works to much wider attention both in the U.S. and abroad. Robeson became a hugely popular concert draw in New York City, and his wife Esland acted as his agent and manager. Carl Sandburg distinguished between Robeson's interpretation of spirituals and that of Roland Hayes, saying that "Hayes imitates white culture... Robeson is the real thing...." Robeson was broadcast in performance on New York radio, usually performing Negro spirituals; on June 7, 1927 he was a featured performer on the ''Edison Hour''. Robeson became interested in the folk music of the world; his standard repertoire after the 1920s included songs in Chinese, Russian, Yiddish and German.
Robeson's earliest film was ''Body and Soul'' (1925), a silent American race film directed by Oscar Micheaux. Robeson played both a conniving preacher, and his twin brother. Disapproving of seeing a preacher as a negative character, the New York Motion Pictures Commission ordered Micheaux to reduce that part.
Move to Britain and political involvement (1928–1939)
In the late 1920s, the Robesons moved to England, where they lived until the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Robeson made extended singing tours of the United States and Europe and appeared in nine films, all but two of them British productions.
''Show Boat''
In 1928 Robeson played the role of Joe, which was written for him, in the London production of the American musical ''Show Boat''. His rendition of ''Ol' Man River'' is widely considered the definitive version of the song. Robeson sang the song as written when he performed in the musical, but in later recitals, he altered the lyrics to transform it to a song of black defiance and perseverance. While ''Show Boat'' was immensely popular with white audiences, black theater reviewers were less than impressed. J.A. Rodgers of ''The Amsterdam News'' wrote that he had spoken to "fully some thirty Negros of intelligence and self respect" who urged "their disapprobation of the play" and he had "heard many harsh things said against Robeson... if anyone had called him (Robeson) a 'nigger', he'd be the first to get offended and there he is singing 'nigger, nigger' before all these white people."
Involvement with Welsh miners
While performing in ''Show Boat'', Robeson met a group of unemployed miners, who had taken part in a hunger march from South Wales. After taking them for their first meal in days, he decided to help their cause. He visited the Rhondda Valley and the Talygarn Miners' Rest Home, and performed for miners and their families in Cardiff, Neath and Aberdare. At the invitation of a group of Labour MPs, he was the first actor to be invited for lunch at the House of Commons.
''Othello''
In 1930, Robeson starred for the first time in the title role in William Shakespeare's ''Othello'' in England. Peggy Ashcroft co-starred as Desdemona. When the play opened on May 19, Robeson became the first black actor in nearly a century, since Ira Aldridge, to play Othello opposite a white cast. The production met with mostly positive reviews with a few lukewarm notices pointing out Robeson's "highly civilized quality" and lack of the "grand style." He had an affair with Ashcroft that lasted on and off until the late 1950s.
Political activities
In an interview with W. R. Titterton in 1930, Robeson rejected "political activism, political advocacy and commitment to a 'cause' as suitable modes for an artist", believing that the artist must be "ultimately accountable only to himself and his art; the prophet and the warrior are by definition at odds with the artist." His son Paul Robeson, Jr. later said, "In 1930, Paul had not yet jettisoned the 'don't upset white folks' dictum of his boyhood days, thus interfering with his ability to project the regal and commanding posture that Othello should deliver from the outset..." In 1938, he performed for an audience of 7,000 at the Welsh International Brigades National Memorial in Mountain Ash, to commemorate the 33 men from Wales killed while fighting on the side of the Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War. Because of his public stands, he became a popular cultural figure in Wales. Robeson often stayed in Tiger Bay with his American uncle by marriage, Aaron Mossell, a black Communist active in Pan-Africanism.In 1940, Robeson appeared in ''The Proud Valley'', playing a black laborer who arrives in the Rhondda and wins the hearts of the local people.
While continuing his professional singing and acting career, through 1939 Robeson became increasingly involved with the struggles of British workers. He performed for them on numerous occasions, entered the pits with miners to see their working conditions, and befriended them. Returning to England in 1949, he said his earlier time there had a profound influence on his political development:
I learned my militancy and my politics, from your Labor Movement here in Britain.... That was how I realized that the fight of my Negro people in America and the fight of oppressed workers everywhere was the same struggle.
Film work
Robeson's second film was the experimental classic ''Borderline''. Shot in Switzerland in 1930 by a trio of ''avant garde'' artists known as the Pool Group, and co-starring his wife, Eslanda, the film chronicles race relations in a small European village. In 1933, he returned briefly to the U.S. where he reprised his title role in Dudley Murphy's film version of Eugene O'Neill's ''The Emperor Jones''. The American version of ''The Emperor Jones'' was censored to leave out a dramatic scene featuring Robeson's killing a white prison guard who had ordered his character to beat a fellow prisoner who had been caught escaping. The 1936 Universal Pictures film ''Show Boat'' was a box office hit for Robeson. It is the most frequently shown of all his films, and his performance of the main song "Ol' Man River" was particularly notable.At the height of his popularity in the 1930s, Robeson became an international box office attraction in British films such as ''Song of Freedom'' (1936) and ''Sanders of the River'' (1935). He was also King Umbopa in the 1937 version of ''King Solomon's Mines''. In films such as ''Jericho'' and ''Proud Valley'', he portrayed strong black American male leading roles without the subservience typical of roles for blacks at the time. Because of his growing political and racial consciousness, he was one of the first actors of any race to demand (and receive) final cut approval on a film (''Song of Freedom''). He was the first black actor to have roles that expressed both dignity and pride in African heritage.
Theatre work
Robeson played the role of Toussaint L'Ouverture in the 1936 play ''Black Majesty'' by C.L.R. James, alongside the actor Robert Adams. He had long wanted to play the role, but the production closed after two weeks. Adams went on to co-star in two of Robeson's films, ''Song of Freedom'' and ''King Solomon's Mines'', and founded the Negro Repertory Arts Theater.In 1938, Robeson appeared in a well-received two-month run of Herbert Marshall's ''Plant in the Sun''. The play dealt with sit-down strikes and union organizing in the US, and was produced by the Unity Theatre.
Identification with African anti-imperialism
Living in London, Robeson became aware of knowledge about African history and culture that was not available in the United States. During the 1930s he met with African students in London, who urged him to travel to the Soviet Union. Paul and Eslanda Robeson were named honorary members of the West African Students' Union in London, where they became good friends with future national presidents Kwame Nkrumah and Jomo Kenyatta. In essays such as "I want to be African", Robeson wrote of his desire to embrace his heritage. He compared the issues of peoples in the colonial possessions of Western Europe and African Americans. Robeson's experiences during the 1930s caused him to alter how he felt about the relationship between art and activism. His African studies, contacts in the anti-imperialism movement, and half-decade association with British socialists led him to visit the Soviet Union. He did not make any public declaration of support for socialism, saying: "In England they call me a 'Communist' because of my views, but I'm certainly not a member of the Communist Party." He was so disappointed by the final cut of the ''Sanders of the River'' (1935) , a stereotypical portrayal of Africa under imperialist rule, that he became "more conscious politically." By the end of the 1930s, Robeson had become an outspoken artist-activist.Though officially enrolled in phonetics and Swahili at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London in 1934, Robeson also studied other languages there and independently while in London, including Igbo, Yoruba, Zulu, Chinese, Russian and Hindi. Robeson is honoured at SOAS through the Paul Robeson House, opened in 1998. In the 1940s he was studying Chinese, when the FBI stole one of his notebooks and had it translated in an unsuccessful attempt to link him to Communist activities. When asked how many languages Robeson spoke, historian Sterling Stuckey answered, "Some claim twelve, others claim twenty; he certainly sang in a great many."
First visit to the Soviet Union
Robeson journeyed to the Soviet Union in December 1934, via Germany, having been given an official invitation. He and Eslanda were nearly attacked by Nazi ''Sturmabteilung'' (Storm troopers) at the stopover in Berlin. In the Soviet Union, Robeson was welcomed by playwrights, artists and filmmakers, among them the film director Sergei Eisenstein, who became a close friend. Robeson also met with African Americans who had migrated to the USSR, including his two brothers-in-law. He found the USSR free of racism and racial segregation; Russians ran up to greet him in the streets. He spoke of the "joy and happiness and friendliness, this utter absence of any embarrassment over a 'race question' is all the more keenly felt by me because of the day I spent in Berlin on the way here, and that was a day of horror—in an atmosphere of hatred, fear and suspicion."Robeson declared that African American spiritual music resonated to Russian folk traditions. He told the press: "Here, I am not a Negro but a human being for the first time in my life ... I walk in full human dignity."
The Spanish Civil War
Robeson had a long association with the International Brigades who served in the Spanish Civil War. This close association endures to present day. Throughout his life he cited the struggle against fascism in Spain as an essential part of shaping his transformation into a political artist and activist, writing in his autobiography that Spain was "the turning point of my life." Robeson is one of only three people to have been given honorary membership in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the volunteers from the United States who served in the Spanish Civil War for the International Brigades.As fascism escalated in Europe, "Save Spain" rallies were organized. The first rally was at the Albert Hall in 1937 sponsored by W.H. Auden, Virginia Woolf, and H.G. Wells, among others, as a benefit concert for the National Joint Committee for Spanish Refugees in Aid of the Basque Refugee Children's Fund. The program cover was designed by Pablo Picasso. In Moscow Robeson recorded a message to be related by radio to the concert, but when Germany threatened to jam the broadcast, and the Albert Hall managers did not wish it to be received, he decided to fly to London to attend the rally in person. In his performance, he changed the lyrics of "Old Man River" from "I'm tired of livin' and scared of dyin'" to "I must keep fightin' until I'm dyin'." He also stated, "The liberation of Spain from the oppression of fascist reactionaries is not a private matter of the Spaniards, but the common cause of all advanced and progressive humanity." Robeson's recorded message included this statement, which became his epitaph:
The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative. The history of the capitalist era is characterized by the degradation of my people: despoiled of their lands, their culture destroyed, ... denied equal protection under law, and deprived their rightful place in the respect of their fellows. Not through blind faith or coercion but conscious of my course, I take my place with you.
By December 1937 Robeson had addressed four rallies for the Republican cause. He had also denounced fascist attacks on Ethiopia by Italy and spoke out in favor of the emerging Communist revolution in China. His British entertainment manager was concerned about the implications of his becoming a political artist. Robeson decided to establish his political events as primary, explaining to the press that, "something inside me has turned". No longer would he appear in "decadent Hollywood films", he stated, but instead would portray "the life, hopes and aspirations of the struggling people from which I come."
Visiting Spain in 1938, Robeson met with the American men and women of The Abraham Lincoln Brigade on the battlefields, including about ninety-five African Americans. Back in Europe, he raised funds for the Spanish Republic, and to aid returning wounded Lincoln veterans in need of medical care.
The Council on African Affairs
Robeson co-founded with Max Yergan the International Committee on African Affairs in 1937 (from 1941, the Council on African Affairs, CAA). The CAA provided information about Africa across the U.S., particularly to African-Americans. During World War II, it functioned as a coalition including a variety of activists from varying leftist backgrounds. Its most successful campaign was probably that for South African famine relief in 1946. Under the weight of internal disputes, government repression, and financial hardships, the CAA disbanded in 1955.
Height of fame and World War II (1939–1945)
Ballad for Americans
After his return from Europe in 1939, Robeson quickly became a national celebrity once again when he performed ''Ballad for Americans'', an American patriotic cantata with lyrics by John La Touche and music by Earl Robinson. Originally titled ''The Ballad for Uncle Sam'', it was written for a Works Progress Administration theatre project called ''Sing for Your Supper''. Robeson performed "Ballad" on the CBS radio network in 1943, accompanied by chorus and orchestra. Bing Crosby made a commercially successful recording of the piece, but the song is closely associated with Robeson, standing at the pinnacle of his music and radio career prior to the Cold War.He sang Ballad for Americans at The Hollywood Bowl to the largest sold-out crowd in its history. The Beverly Wilshire was the only hotel in Los Angeles willing to accommodate Robeson, at the then exorbitant rate of $100 per night and only if he would register under an assumed name. He complied with the requirements, but then arranged to spend two hours every afternoon sitting in the lobby, where he could easily be recognized. When asked why, he responded, "To ensure that the next time Black singers and actors come through, they'll have a place to stay." During that period, Collier's magazine named him both "favorite male Negro singer" and "America's no.1 entertainer."
Wartime performances
When Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the war, Robeson was among the first performers to give benefit concerts on behalf of the American war effort, making him one of the top American actors and singers of that era. In an interview published in all the black weeklies and the July–August issue of ''TAC'', magazine of the Theatre Arts Committee, Robeson was asked what prompted his decision to return to the US to live, he replied:
I've learned that my people are not the only ones oppressed. That it is the same for Jews or Chinese as for Negroes, and that such prejudice has no place in a democracy. I have sung my songs all over the world, and everywhere found that some common bond makes the people of all lands take to Negro songs, as to their own....{A]ll oppressed people cry out against their oppressors....[These experiences] have made me come home to sing my songs so that we will see that our democracy does not vanish. If I can contribute to this as an artist, I shall be happy.
Film work
In 1942 Robeson lent his speaking and singing talents to the Frontier Films production of ''Native Land''. A combination of a documentary format and staged reenactments, the film depicted the struggle of trade unions against anti-union corporations. It was based on the 1938 report of the La Follette Committee's investigation of the repression of labor organizing. The FBI labeled it "...obviously a Communist project."The same year, in Hollywood, Robeson participated in the anthology film ''Tales of Manhattan''. His segment depicted black people's living conditions under the sharecropping system. Robeson was dissatisfied, calling it "very offensive to my people. It makes the Negro childlike and innocent and is in the old plantation hallelujah shouter tradition". He attempted to remove the film from distribution but buying up all prints proved far too expensive. Robeson held a press conference, announcing that he would no longer act in Hollywood films because of the demeaning roles available to black actors and would gladly join others in picketing the film. During this period, Robeson also turned down roles in ''Moby Dick'', ''Gone With The Wind'', ''Song of the South'' and ''Porgy and Bess''.
Japanese Americans
In February 1942, Robeson was approached by the sculptor Isamu Noguchi to join a panel of prominent non-Asians testifying before Congress to the loyalty of Japanese Americans, in order to avert mass removal. Robeson volunteered but the panel idea was dropped once Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066.Robeson remained attentive to Nisei concerns. In a 1943 speech, he praised "the workers from Mexico and from the east--Japan and the Philippines--whose labor has helped make the west and the southwest a fruitful land." In 1946, he opposed a move by the Canadian government to deport thousands of Japanese Canadians. Robeson accepted honorary life membership of the Japanese Canadian Committee for Democracy and gave a concert in Salt Lake City, then home to the Japanese American Citizens League.
Civil Rights activism
In winter 1943, Robeson traveled to Boston where he called for a full investigation into the recent rash of antisemitic acts of vandalism against a Jewish cemetery and a synagogue. The following month he spoke at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York, at 12th Annual ''Herald Tribune'' Forum, on the participation of African Americans in the fight against the Axis powers. In December, 1943, Robeson addressed an annual meeting of Major League Baseball club owners, demanding they admit black players to major league baseball, helping to pave the way for Jackie Robinson to break the "color bar" in baseball two years later.
The Broadway Othello
Robeson reprised the role of Othello in New York in 1943 under the direction of Margaret Webster, and toured the US with it until 1945. , his run of ''Othello'' is the longest of any Shakespeare play on Broadway, running for 296 performances. Uta Hagen played Desdemona, and José Ferrer played Iago. For his portrayal, Robeson received a Donaldson Award, as well as the Gold Medal for the best diction in the American theater, which had only been awarded nine times since its inception in 1924. The eighteen-disc 78 RPM record album made by Columbia Masterworks from this production was the longest spoken word album made until then, and the first two-hour album ever made of a Shakespeare play. It was later transferred to LP, where it appeared on a three-disc album set, and has been issued on CD by the company Pearl. Unfortunately, its career on LP was extremely brief, since the recording was made in the 1940's and Robeson was blacklisted shortly after. thumb|right|250px|Paul Robeson with Uta Hagen in the Theatre Guild production of ''Othello''.The play had its Broadway run at the Shubert Theatre, and Robeson was the first African American to play the role with a white supporting cast on the Broadway stage. At the opening night performance, the audience gave the cast a twenty-minute standing ovation, for ten curtain calls. Despite his popularity, Robeson was not permitted to dine at Sardi's, a once-segregated restaurant located just across the street from the Theatre. Robeson toured with Othello in the US and Canada until 1945 and continued to perform solo excerpts from the play at his concert performances for the remainder of his career.
Civil rights activism and post war politics (1945–1948)
During World War II, Robeson's support for the Allied War effort had made him the world's most famous African-American and his previous statements and advocacy for socialism had been ignored by both the media and the white establishment. The start of the Cold war led to a social climate in which most civil rights and anti-imperialist groups in the United States were considered "Communist affiliated."Many of Robeson's closest friends and associates including Benjamin Davis, Howard Fast and William L. Patterson, were CPUSA members.
Spingarn medal
In 1945, Robeson was awarded the Spingarn medal by the NAACP for his "distinguished achievements in the theatre and concert stage as well as his active concern for the rights of the common man for every race, color, religion and nationality."
American Crusade to End Lynching
In July 1946, as Chairman of the Council on African Affairs, Robeson telegramed President Truman on the lynching of four African Americans in Georgia, demanding that the federal government "take steps to apprehend and punish the perpetrators ... and to halt the rising tide of lynch law.In September of that year, Robeson spoke at a large rally against lynching, at Madison Square Gardens. Also that September, Robeson headed a protest at the Lincoln Memorial, for the American Crusade Against Lynching, a coalition of organizations and public figures, including Albert Einstein. Following the rally, he led a delegation to the White House to present a legislative and educational program to President Truman aimed at ending mob violence; demanding that lynchers be prosecuted and calling on Congress to enact a federal anti-lynching law. Robeson then warned Truman that if the government did not do something to end lynching, "the Negroes will". He contrasted the United States lead in prosecuting Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials with the continuation of lynching at home. Truman refused the request to issue a formal public statement against lynching, stating that it was not "the right time." Robeson also gave a radio address, calling on all Americans of all races to demand that Congress pass civil rights legislation.
Tenney Committees
On October 7, 1946, Robeson testified before the Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities in California (Tenney Committee) that he was not a Communist Party member. He was never identified as an official member of any Communist organization.
Civil Rights Congress
In 1947 Robeson met with leaders of the NAACP to form a coalition to coordinate anti-lynching efforts with the Civil Rights Congress, an organization close to the Communist Party of the United States of America, regarded as "subversive and communist" by the Truman administration.Robeson sang and spoke in 1948 at an event organized by the Los Angeles Civil Rights Congress and labor unions to launch a campaign against job discrimination, for passage of the federal Fair Employment Practices Act also known as Executive Order 8802, anti-lynching and anti-poll tax legislation, and citizens’ action to defeat the county loyalty oath climate.
Robeson again sought an appointment with President Truman to confer on anti-poll tax, anti-lynching and fair employment legislation, but repeated requests were rejected.
The Progressive Party
In 1948, Robeson was very active as co-chairman of the presidential campaign to elect Progressive Party candidate Henry A. Wallace, who had served as Vice-President under Franklin D. Roosevelt. Wallace was running on an anti-lynching, pro-civil rights platform and had attracted a diverse group of voters including Communists, liberals and trade unionists. On the campaign trail in June of that year, Robeson went to the deep south, including Georgia, where he sang before "overflow audiences... in Negro churches in Atlanta and Macon." At the party's convention in Philadelphia, Robeson joined forces with the delegates from the Nisei for Wallace. The Progressive Party went on record in favor of evacuation claims for former camp residents, repeal of discriminatory laws against Japanese aliens, plus equal immigration and naturalization rights. During the campaign, Robeson organized a fund-raising concert tour in Hawaii under the auspices of the Longshoreman's Union.
Trade union activism
Robeson's belief that the labor movement and trade unionism were crucial to the civil rights of oppressed people of all races became central to his political beliefs. Many unions during the 1940s and 1950s were still characterized by segregation. Robeson's close friend, the union activist Revels Cayton, pressed for "black caucuses" in each union, with Robeson's encouragement and involvement. Domestically and internationally, Robeson enjoyed long friendships with various unions for his devotion to their causes.Robeson also supported "Camp Wo-Chi-Ca" (Workers' Children's Camp) in New Jersey, an interracial summer camp for working class children established by the International Workers Order. Robeson would visit the camp every summer from 1940 to 1949, singing playing baseball with the children and developing an extensive musical program. In summer of 1949, Robeson also visited the largely Jewish Camp Kinderland in New York.
Mundt-Nixon bill and Smith Act
Robeson opposed anti-communist legislation. In 1948, he opposed a bill calling for registration of Communist Party members and appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Questioned about his affiliation with the Communist Party, he refused to answer, stating "Some of the most brilliant and distinguished Americans are about to go to jail for the failure to answer that question, and I am going to join them, if necessary." (The bill was ultimately defeated in the Senate.) In 1949, he spoke in favor of the liberty of twelve Communists (including his long-time friend Benjamin Davis, Jr.) convicted under the Smith Act, which criminalized various left- and right-wing activities as seditious.
Controversies and international travels (1949)
Following a successful U.S. and Caribbean tour during late 1948, Robeson took a Christmas break at the family home in Enfield, Connecticut, planning to join accompanist Lawrence Brown in the spring of 1949 for scheduled US concert dates. He soon was informed, however, that the performances were canceled by local booking agents whom the FBI had threatened to brand "pro-Communist." For the first time in his professional life, Robeson was without a U.S. concert audience and his recordings were now banned from radio and stores. Robeson had also become the target of conservative journalists Walter Winchell and Hedda Hopper. With the United States government and media pressuring the entertainment industry into blacklisting him, in 1949 Robeson had to go overseas to work. Robeson's 1949 tour of Europe, took him to France, Britain, Scandinavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Soviet Union.There had been travel conditions put on him by the U.S. State Department upon the renewal of his passport and he signed a waiver to not make any "political or charitable appearances while on tour." Robeson was also under heavy surveillance by the CIA while abroad.
The Paris Peace Congress
As an authorized speaker for the Coordinating Committee of the Colonial Peoples of London, in April 1949, Robeson attended the Paris Peace Congress sponsored by the Soviet Union and by pro-Communist and Communist organizations. There he sang Joe Hill and spoke extemporaneously about why he thought the progressives in America did not want war. The widely publicized speech caused extreme controversy in the United States when it was misquoted by the Associated Press. Numerous biographers and historians concur that this one single event signaled the start of Robeson's status as an "enemy" of the United States government and the end of his popularity with mainstream America during the Cold War. A direct translation from the French transcripts of the live audio is as follows,
"We in America do not forget that it was the backs of white workers from Europe and on the backs of millions of Blacks that the wealth of America was built. And we are resolved to share it equally. We reject any hysterical raving that urges us to make war on anyone. Our will to fight for peace is strong. We shall not make war upon the Soviet Union. We oppose those who wish to support imperialism Germany and to establish fascism in Greece. We wish peace with Franco's Spain despite her fascism. We shall support peace and friendship among all nations, with Soviet Russia and the People's Republics. "
What came over the wires to news agencies via the AP in the United States was as follows,
"We colonial peoples have contributed to the building of the United States and are determined to share its wealth. We denounce the policy of the United States government which is similar to Hitler and Goebbels. We want peace and liberty and will combat for them along with the Soviet Union and the Democracies of Eastern Europe, China and Indonesia. It is unthinkable that American Negros would go to war on behalf of those who have oppressed us for generations against the Soviet Union which in one generation has lifted our people to full human dignity. "
Research has shown that AP had put the dispatch on the wires as Robeson was starting his speech. The misquote was very similar in structure to previous Robeson speeches and his questioning at the Mundt-Nixon Bill hearings with the difference being that at the hearing Robeson had claimed to be only speaking for himself. The reaction by the press, both liberal and right wing, in the United States was nearly universal condemnation with radio commentator Walter Winchell broadcasting daily vitriolic attacks at Robeson approved by J Edgar Hoover. ''Jersey Home'' newspaper called for Robeson to be "executed in the electric chair"and Boston Sunday called him "an undesirable citizen", regretting that he had been "U.S. born."
At the urging of the State Department to make a formal statement, NAACP leaders dissociated themselves from Robeson. Roy Wilkins stated that regardless of the number of lynchings that were occurring or would occur, Black America would always serve in the armed forces. The black-owned ''Chicago Defender'' was one of the few American newspapers willing to question accuracy of the AP bulletin, while the progressive ''National Guardian'' and the Communist ''Daily Worker'' printed quotes of Robeson's speech verbatim.
USSR and Itzik Feffer
In June, he arrived in the Soviet Union, where he participated in celebrating Alexander Pushkin's 150th anniversary, including performances at Bolshoi Theatre and Tchaikovsky Hall. According to his son, Robeson was disturbed as to why he could not find his many Jewish friends, most notably Itzik Feffer, a Yiddish poet, and Solomon Mikhoels, an actor and director. As Robeson persisted, the KGB brought Feffer to Robeson who told him that the room was bugged and that Solomon Mikhoels had been murdered by the NKVD. Feffer also communicated that his own life was in danger. As neither Robeson nor Feffer ever went public about the meeting, the event and its details remains a matter of both conjecture and controversy. During his concert in Tchaikovsky Hall on June 14 - which was broadcast across the entire country - Robeson publicly paid tribute to Feffer and the late Mikhoels, singing the Vilna Partisan song "Zog Nit Keynmol" in both Russian and Yiddish. Recordings of the concert survived but Robeson's spoken words are lost.Back in the United States, Robeson stated that he did not encounter any persecution of Jews and other political prisoners, stating that he "met Jewish people all over the place.... I heard no word about it". Herbert Hill, former labor director of the NAACP, commented on the reputed event fifty years later stating "just think what it would have meant if he had denounced this evil while in the Soviet Union and instead he comes back and he lies, he lies again and again and he knows better." Paul Robeson, Jr. said "he wasn't about to come to the United States and criticize the Soviet Union which in his mind was a barrier to world domination by the right wing of the United States."
Congressional statement by Jackie Robinson
This subsequent controversy over Robeson's remarks in Paris caused the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) to investigate Robeson.HUAC sought Jackie Robinson's testimony on the subject. Robinson was reluctant to testify to HUAC on these matters, in part because of Robeson's prior advocacy on behalf of integration in professional baseball. In July 1949, Robinson eventually agreed to testify before HUAC, fearing that declining to do so might negatively and permanently damage his career. His testimony was a major media event, with Robinson's carefully worded statement appearing on the front page of ''The New York Times'' the following day. While Robeson declined to comment on Robinson personally: "I am not going to permit the issue to boil down to a personal feud between me and Jackie. To do that, would be to do exactly what the other group wants us to do."
Civil Rights Congress and Trotskyists
In January 1949, Robeson led a conference of delegates to march on the White House, again demanding government action against lynching; President Truman refused to see them. Robeson spoke at the "Bill of Rights Conference", in New York, sponsored by CRC, again calling for an end to segregation and lynching. The 1,200 delegates issued a statement which said, in part, "We declare that Robeson does, indeed, speak for us, not only in his fight for full democratic rights, but also in his fight for peace." Robeson also spoke at a mass meeting of 1,500 sponsored by the Civil Rights Congress in support of the Trenton Six. At a Bill of Rights Conference in New York in July 1949, Robeson denounced a motion, which called for the freeing of nineteen members of the Socialist Workers Party convicted in 1941, calling the imprisoned Trotskyists- who were at odds with the Soviet leadership-"the allies of Fascism who want to destroy the new democracies of the world...let's not get confused, they are the enemies of the working class. Would you give civil rights to the Ku Klux Klan?" Biographer Martin Duberman wrote, "it was not Robeson's finest hour." On August 4, 1949 Robeson also led a picket line in front of White House, called by United Public Workers of America to protest racist hiring practices at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, challenging President Truman to make good on his civil rights promises and enforce the Fair Employment Practices Act.
Peekskill Riots
In 1949, a popular concert by Robeson in Peekskill, New York, to benefit the Civil Rights Congress resulted in the Peekskill Riots caused by anti-Communist and anti-civil rights members of local Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion chapters and also by local residents. The concert, organized as a benefit for the Civil Rights Congress, was scheduled to take place on August 27 in Lakeland Acres, just north of Peekskill. Before Robeson arrived, a mob of locals attacked concert-goers with baseball bats and rocks. Thirteen people were seriously injured before the police intervened. The concert was postponed until September 4.The rescheduled event, on September 4, 1949, was attended by 20,000 people and went off without incident but, after the concert, a violent mob, caught on film by the press, chanting "Go back to Russia you white Niggers" and "Dirty Kikes", threw rocks through the windshields of cars and buses. Standing off the angry mob of rioters, some of the concertgoers, and union members, along with writer Howard Fast and others assembled a non-violent line of resistance, locked arms, and sang the song "We Shall Not Be Moved." Some people were reportedly dragged from their vehicles and beaten. Over 140 people were injured and numerous vehicles were severely damaged as police stood by. Following the riots, more than 300 Robeson supporters went to Albany to voice their indignation to Governor Thomas Dewey, who refused to meet with them, blaming "Communists for provoking the violence." Twenty-seven plaintiffs filed a civil suit against Westchester County and two veterans groups. The charges were dismissed three years later. Paul Robeson called the actions of the New York state troopers, who were caught on film beating concert goers, including World War I veteran and first decorated Black aviator, Eugene Bullard, as "Fascist stormtroopers who will knock down and club anyone who disagrees with them" Photographs of Eugene Bullard being beaten by two policeman, a state trooper and concert-goer were later published in Susan Robeson's pictorial biography of her grandfather.
Passport confiscation and Communist associations (1950–1955)
In March 1950, NBC canceled Robeson's scheduled appearance on former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's television program, ''Today with Mrs. Roosevelt''. A spokesman for NBC declared that Robeson would "never appear on NBC." Press releases of the Civil Rights Congress objected that "censorship of Mr. Robeson's appearance on TV is a crude attempt to silence the outstanding spokesman for the Negro people in their fight for civil and human rights" and that our "basic democratic rights are under attack under the smoke-screen of anti-Communism." Protesters picketed NBC offices and protests arrived from numerous public figures, organizations and others.
Passport confiscated
In 1950, the State Department denied Robeson a passport and issued a "stop notice" at all ports, effectively confining him within the United States. Robeson was not allowed to travel to Canada or Mexico, countries that US citizens could visit without a passport. Far from seeking to revoke his U.S. citizenship and deport him, the FBI and state department records indicate that the US government believed that a blacklisted existence inside the United States borders would offer Robeson less freedom of expression than his presence internationally would. When Robeson and his lawyers met with officials at the State Department on August 23, 1950 and asked why it was "detrimental to the interests of the United States Government" for him to travel abroad, they were told that "his frequent criticism of the treatment of blacks in the United States should not be aired in foreign countries"—it was a "family affair." When Robeson inquired about being re-issued a passport, the State Department declined, citing Robeson's refusal to sign a statement guaranteeing "not to give any speeches while outside the U.S."In a symbolic act of defiance against the travel ban, labor unions in the U.S. and Canada organized a concert at the International Peace Arch on the border between Washington state and the Canadian province of British Columbia on May 18, 1952. Paul Robeson stood on the back of a flat bed truck on the American side of the U.S.-Canada border and performed a concert for a crowd on the Canadian side, variously estimated at between 20,000 and 40,000 people. Robeson returned to perform a second concert at the Peace Arch in 1953, and over the next two years two further concerts were scheduled. In this period, with the encouragement of his friend the Welsh politician Aneurin Bevan, Robeson recorded a number of radio concerts for supporters in Wales. In 1956, Robeson left the United States for the first time since the travel ban was imposed, performing concerts in two Canadian cities, Sudbury and Toronto, in March of that year. The travel ban ended in 1958 when Robeson's passport was returned to him after eight years of protracted legal struggles and defeats.
"We Charge Genocide" petition
Although unable to travel outside the United States, Robeson continued to be politically active. He presented to the United Nations in New York on December 17, 1951 an anti-lynching petition, "We Charge Genocide". It was also presented to a UN delegation in Paris. The document asserted that the U.S. federal government, by its failure to act against lynching in the United States, was "guilty of genocide" under Article II of the UN Genocide Convention.
"Paul Robeson - the Lost Shepherd"
In 1951 an article titled "Paul Robeson - the Lost Shepherd" was published in ''The Crisis'', the official magazine of the NAACP, under the pseudonym "Robert Alan", described as "a well known New York journalist". In actuality, the author was NAACP chairman Roy Wilkins.J. Edgar Hoover and the United States State Department arranged for the article to be printed and distributed in Africa. Guidelines issued through the US Consulate in Accra, Ghana, on how to deal with Robeson's reputation included the following instructions:
"USIE in the Gold Coast, and I suspect everywhere else in Africa, badly needs a through-going, sympathetic and regretful but straight talking treatment of the whole Robeson episode...there's no way the Communists score on us more easily and more effectively out here, than on the US. Negro problem in general, and on the Robeson case in particular. And, answering the latter, we go a long way toward answering the former. "
Another article by Roy Wilkins, called "Stalin's Greatest Defeat", denounced Robeson as well as the Communist Party of the USA in terms consistent with the FBI's information. In April 1953, shortly after Stalin's death, Robeson penned a eulogy entitled ''To You Beloved Comrade'', praising Stalin as being dedicated to peace and a guidance to the world: "Through his deep humanity, by his wise understanding, he leaves us a rich and monumental heritage."
After Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalinism at the 1956 Party Congress, Robeson neither publicly denounced nor praised Stalin, though he continued to praise the Soviet Union. In 1956, Robeson, along with close friend W. E. B. Du Bois, compared the anti-Stalinist revolution in Hungary to the "same sort of people who overthrew the Spanish Republican Government" and supported the Soviet invasion and suppression of the revolt.
Robeson is often criticized for accepting the Stalin Peace Prize, eulogizing Stalin, and continuing to support the Soviet Union and not formally denouncing the regime, despite conflicting accounts that show his awareness of state-sponsored intimidation and murder.
Robeson refused pressure to publicly censure the Soviet Union, although it would ostensibly eased his passport restrictions and possibly allowed him back into the mainstream of the entertainment world and the mainstream of the civil rights movement. In his opinion, the existence of the USSR was the guarantee of political balance in the world. Robeson's biographers, including Martin Duberman, Philip S Foner, Scott Allen Nollen, Dr, Charles Wright, Marie Seton, Paul Robeson Jr and Lloyd Brown, argue that he felt that criticism of the Soviet Union by someone of his international standing would only serve to shore up reactionary elements in the U.S. Robeson is on record many times as stating that he felt the "existence of a major socialist power like the USSR was a bulwark against Western European capitalist domination of Africa, Asia and the Caribbean." At no time is Paul Robeson on record of mentioning any unhappiness or regrets about his support for the Soviet Union and his hopes for socialism in Africa and Asia.
Blacklisting and international response (1956–1958)
In 1956, Robeson was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities after he refused to sign an affidavit affirming that he was not a Communist. In response to questions concerning his alleged party membership, Robeson insisted that the Communist Party was a legal party and invited its members to join him in the voting booth before he invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to respond. Robeson refused to discuss Joseph Stalin, calling it "a question for the Soviet Union", instead lambasting committee members on civil rights issues and the enslavement and exploitation of blacks throughout American history. Asked why he had not remained in the Soviet Union, he replied that "because my father was a slave and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay here, and have a part of it just like you and no fascist minded people will drive me from it! Is that clear?"
"Let Paul Robeson Sing"
Campaigns were simultaneously launched in the USA and UK to protest the passport ban. In the UK, ''The National Paul Robeson Committee'' was formed, sponsored by Members of Parliament as well as writers, scholars, actors, lawyers, trade union leaders and others. The Committee began a "Let Paul Robeson Sing" mass petition, which gathered signatures from tens of thousands of supporters. Over the next four years, many prominent figures in Britain argued for the restoration of Robeson's right to travel. The group held a conference and concert at St Pancras Town Hall, London headed by Cedric Belfrage, on May 26, 1957 with Robeson singing direct from New York over a telephone connection.
Trans-Atlantic telephone concert for the Welsh miners
In 1957, Robeson was invited by Welsh miners to be the honored guest at the annual Eisteddfod Music Festival. An appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States to restitute his confiscated passport had been rejected, but through the newly completed trans-Atlantic telephone hook-up between New York and Porthcawl, Wales, Robeson was able to sing to the 5,000 gathered there as he had earlier in the year to London. Journalist Gil Noble called the concert "perhaps the most emotional and moving in Robeson's long concert career."
Disappearance from the media
Because of the controversy surrounding him, Paul Robeson's recordings and films lost mainstream distribution and he was universally condemned in the mainstream U.S press. During the height of the Cold War it became increasingly difficult in the United States to hear Robeson sing on commercial radio, buy his music or to see any of his films, including ''Show Boat''.In the United States very little newsreel footage of Robeson now exists, including in the Library of Congress, as the majority of U.S. newsreel footage has been either destroyed or has the sound erased.
Erasure from sports records
The 1950 volume, ''College Football Hall of Fame'', labeled "the most complete record on college football", omits Robeson, identifying only a ten-man team. Martin Duberman wrote that due to his blacklisting within the mainstream media, the concert stage, theater, radio, film and the civil rights movement, Robeson became an outcast, very nearly a nonperson."
Comeback (1958–1961)
Robeson's autobiography, ''Here I Stand'', was published by a British publishing company in 1958. As part of his "comeback", he gave two sold-out recitals that month in Carnegie Hall, which were released on LP and later on CD. They were his only stereo recordings.Also that year, Robeson's 60th birthday was celebrated in several US cities and twenty-seven countries across Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa, as well as in the Soviet Union. Later, in May 1958, his passport was finally restored and he was able to travel again, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in ''Kent vs. Dulles'', that the Secretary of State had no right to deny a passport or require any citizen to sign an affidavit because of his political beliefs. Robeson and Eslanda moved to the United Kingdom landing there on July 11, 1958 and traveled extensively, using London as their base of operations. During this period Robeson was under constant surveillance by the CIA, MI6 and the State Department.
Tours of Britain and the USSR
In the United Kingdom, Robeson found himself deluged with professional offers. His numerous appearances included a formal concert at the Albert Hall and a book autographing party at Selfridges.In August, 1959 he left for Moscow where he received a tumultuous reception and needed a police escort at the airport. A crowd of eighteen thousand people filled the Lenin Stadium (Khabarovsk) to capacity on August 17, 1959 where Robeson sang classic Russian songs along with his standards. Robeson and Eslanda then flew to Crimea to spend time at Yalta resting, working with a documentary film crew and spending time with Nikita Khrushchev. Robeson also visited Young Pioneer camp Artek before returning to the UK.
On October 11, 1959 Robeson took part in a historic service at St.Paul's Cathedral, being the first black performer to sing there. Four thousand people attended the evensong performance with hundreds overflowing onto the streets. Robeson had then planned to leave for India as a guest of Nehru but was prevented by the weather. The US State Department had circulated negative literature about him through the media in India; one censored CIA memo suggested that Robeson's appearance could be used to thwart the desegregation of a swimming pool.
In 1960, Robeson made his only appearance on a television variety series, a long-running British entry called ''Spectacular''. He was also the host of this episode, entitled ''The Paul Robeson Show''.
On a trip to Moscow, Robeson started to develop bouts of dizziness and the beginning of heart problems. His trip to India was definitively canceled, and he was hospitalized for two months along with his wife Eslanda who was diagnosed with operable cancer.
Wales and final performance of Othello
Robeson recovered and returned to the U.K. to fulfill his engagements.In 1958, he visited the National Eisteddfod in Ebbw Vale as the guest of the local MP Aneurin Bevan, revisited his ties to the black community in Cardiff's Butetown and gave performances throughout Europe. During his run at the Royal Shakespeare Company playing Othello in Tony Richardson's 1959 production at Stratford-upon-Avon, he befriended actor Andrew Faulds who's family he was staying with in the nearby village of Shottery while performing. Robeson inspired him to take up a career in politics after admonishing him for being apolitical. The production of Othello was geared towards Robeson's health concerns but gave him a lucrative seven month run and chance to participate in an updated version of the play directed by Tony Richardson. In 1960, in what would prove to be Paul Robeson's final concert performance in Great Britain, he sang with the Welsh Male Voice Choir, Côr Meibion Cwmbach, to raise money for the ''Movement for Colonial Freedom'' at the Royal Festival Hall.
Tour of Australia and New Zealand
Though starting to show the beginning of heart problems and fatigue, Robeson accepted a lucrative tour of Australia, and New Zealand in October to November 1960.The most notable of his appearances was at the Sydney Opera House, still under construction. Robeson stood on the foundations and sang ''Ol Man River'' and '''Joe Hill''. Many of the workers had him autograph their hard hats following the performance.
Apart from his public concerts, he spoke about unionism and the indigenous peoples of both countries then sang several numbers. Robeson also sang to striking waterside workers in Wellington and accepted membership in their union.
Visiting rural community centers and presented with indigenous art including a painting by Australian artist Albert Namatjira, Davis recalled Robeson's arrival in Perth on the last leg of his tour,
"...when he spotted a group of local aborigines shyly hanging back, he instantly headed for them, moving through the crowd like a full back. When he reached them, he literally gathered the nearest half dozen in his great arms, and when he moved toward his waiting transport, the aborigines moved with him. Davies heard one of the little girls say, almost in wonder, 'Mum, he likes us.'"Lloyd Davis felt that Robeson's words and gestures during his tour "gave a tremendous boost to the aboriginal cause" and writer and broadcaster Phillip Adams recalled, Robeson's tour was like "a second coming" to "aspiring young lefties" in Australia.
During this tour for the first time news-sources of diverse political views reported that he was responding to questions at press conferences with "anger and bitterness." Some headlines included ''The Herald'' printing, "Would Back Russia in a War" and "Robeson Bitterly Critical of the U.S.", with the ''Telegraph'' stating "I Wish He Was Still Bosambo."
In Auckland he reputedly told the press he was only "here to sing" and then declared himself a "rigid Marxist.". While expressing concern about the mistreatment of the Māoris Robeson said, "I want to learn Māori songs and as much as I can of the Māori language." and "...the people of the lands of Socialism want peace dearly,"
The nine week tour would prove to be the final concert tour of his forty year career.
Back in London, he began to plan his return to the U.S. to participate in the Civil Rights Movement, stopping off in Africa, China and Cuba along the way. His wife Eslanda argued to stay in London, fearing that he'd be "killed" if he returned to the US and "unable to make any money" due to harassment by the US government. Robeson disagreed and made his own travel arrangements, stopping off in Moscow in March 1961.
Health breakdown (1961–1965)
In spring of 1961, Robeson again traveled to the Soviet Union, his last visit there. During an uncharacteristically wild party in his Moscow hotel room, he locked himself in his bedroom and attempted suicide by cutting his wrists. Three days later, while under Soviet medical care, he told his son that he felt extreme paranoia, thought that the walls of the room were moving and, overcome by a powerful sense of emptiness and depression, tried to take his own life.Robeson stayed at the Barvikha Sanatorium until September 1961, when he left Moscow for London. There his depression re-emerged, and after another period of recuperation in Moscow, he returned to London. Three days after arriving back he became suicidal and suffered a panic attack while passing the Soviet Embassy. He was admitted to The Priory hospital, where he underwent electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and was given heavy doses of drugs for nearly two years, with no accompanying psychotherapy.
During his treatment at the Priory, Robeson was being monitored by the British MI5. Both U.S. and British intelligence services were well aware of Robeson's suicidal state of mind. An FBI memo described Robeson's debilitated condition, remarking that his "death would be much publicized" and would be used for Communist propaganda, making continued surveillance imperative. Numerous memos also advised that Robeson should be denied a passport renewal which would ostensibly jeopardize his fragile health and the recovery process he was engaged in overseas.
During his convalescence, while receiving outpatient treatment, he spent frequent periods at his Connaught Square flat with Eslanda. In August 1963, disturbed about his treatment, friends had him transferred to the Buch Clinic in East Berlin. Given psychotherapy and less medication, his physicians found him still "completely without initiative" and they expressed "doubt and anger" about the "high level of barbiturates and ECT" that had been administered in London. He rapidly improved, though his doctor stressed that "what little is left of Paul's health must be quietly conserved."
Paul Robeson, Jr. argued for years that his father's health problems stemmed from attempts by CIA and MI5 to "neutralize" his father. He remembered that his father had such fears prior to his prostate operation. He said that three doctors treating Robeson in London and New York had been CIA contractors, and that his father's symptoms resulted from being "subjected to mind depatterning under MKULTRA", a secret CIA programme. Martin Duberman's view was that given the most available evidence, Paul Robeson's health breakdown was brought on by a combination of factors including extreme emotional and physical stress, bipolar depression, exhaustion and the beginning of circulatory and heart problems. Duberman added that "even without an organic predisposition and accumulated pressures of government harassment he might have been susceptible to a breakdown".
Later years (1966–1976)
In 1963, Robeson eventually returned to the United States and for the remainder of his life lived in quiet seclusion. He had intended to assume a role in the civil rights movement, making a few major public appearances before falling seriously ill during a tour, nearly dying from double pneumonia and a kidney blockage in 1965. He first lived in Harlem with his wife. After Eslanda died of cancer in December 1965, Robeson moved in with his son's family in an Upper West Side apartment in New York City and in 1968, he finally settled at his sister's home in Philadelphia.In these years Robeson was honored by accolades and celebrations, both in the U.S. and internationally, including public arenas that had previously shunned him.
Civil Rights figures
On January 15, 1965, Robeson gave the eulogy at the Harlem funeral of Lorraine Hansberry recalling her work at Freedomways and her contributions to civil rights. Malcolm X was one of those who attended the funeral. The two men did not meet on that occasion, but Malcolm X, who admired Robeson, subsequently approached Paul Robeson, Jr. about arranging a meeting. (According to Ossie Davis, he was also approached by Malcolm X's intermediaries in hopes of meeting Robeson.) Robeson agreed, but Malcolm X was assassinated before the meeting could be arranged.Following Hansberry's funeral, Robeson was also contacted by both Bayard Rustin and James L. Farmer, Jr. about the possibility of becoming involved with the mainstream of the Civil Rights movement. Due to Rustin's past anti-Communist stances, Robeson declined to meet with him. Robeson eventually met with Farmer but was asked to denounce Communism and the Soviet Union in order to assume a place in the mainstream, Robeson adamantly declined.
Life in Philadelphia
Living at his sister Marian's home Robeson saw few visitors aside from very close friends and gave few statements apart from a few messages to support current civil rights and international movements, feeling that his record "spoke for itself". Though due to his ailing health, he withdrew from the public to lead a quiet life, close friends and family have disputed the rumors in the mainstream press that he was "broken" and "disillusioned". In her book ''Paul Robeson's Last Days in Philadelphia'', Charlotte Turner Bell, a local music teacher and Robeson friend chronicled the time she spent accompanying Robeson on the piano each Sunday and of his life in retirement.
Birthday celebrations
In 1968, events were held all over the world in honor of Paul Robeson's 70th birthday including a three day celebration in East Germany. There was also an evening of music and poetry in London at the Royal Festival Hall featuring Mary Ure, Peggy Ashcroft, Peter O'Toole and Michael Redgrave. In Moscow, speakers included the writer Boris Nikolaevich Polevoy and the poet Mikhail Kotov. The black commission of the CPUSA celebration remarked that "the white power structure has generated a conspiracy of silence around Paul Robeson. It wants to blot out all knowledge of this pioneering Black American warrior..."More than 3,000 people gathered in Carnegie Hall to salute Robeson's 75th birthday in 1973, including Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Pete Seeger, Odetta, Angela Davis, Dolores Huerta, Dizzy Gillespie, Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte (who also produced the show), James Earl Jones, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, and Coretta Scott King; birthday greetings arrived from President Julius K. Nyerere of Tanzania, Prime Minister Michael Manley of Jamaica, President Cheddi Jagan of Guyana, President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Indira Gandhi and the African National Congress. Robeson was unable to attend because of illness, but a taped message from him was played which said in part, "Though I have not been able to be active for several years, I want you to know that I am the same Paul, dedicated as ever to the worldwide cause of humanity for freedom, peace and brotherhood."
Death and funeral service
On January 23, 1976, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the age of 77, Paul Robeson died of a stroke following "complications from a 'severe cerebral vascular disorder.'" He lay in state for a viewing at Benta's Funeral Home in Harlem for two days. His granddaughter, Susan Robeson, recalled "...watching this parade of humanity who came to pay their respects...from the numbers runner on the corner to Gustaf VI Adolf, King of Sweden."Condolences came from around the world, including Coretta Scott King, who deplored "America's inexcusable treatment" of a man who had had "the courage to point out her injustices." According to Robeson biographer, Martin Duberman:
"The white press, after decades of harassing Robeson, now tipped its hat to a 'great American,' paid its gingerly respect in editorials that ascribed the vituperation leveled at Robeson in his lifetime to the Bad Old Days of the Cold War, implied those days were forever gone, downplayed the racist component central to his persecution, and ignored the continuing inability of white America to tolerate a black maverick who refused to bend. The black press made no such mistakes. It had never, overall, been as hostile to Robeson as the white press, (though at some points in his career, nearly so)."
The black press universally celebrated Robeson, with ''The Amsterdam News'' eulogizing him as "Gulliver among the Lilliputians" and saying his life would "always be a challenge and a reproach to white and Black America."
On January 27, 1976, 2,500 people attended Paul Robeson's funeral at Mother AME Zion Church in Harlem, where Robeson's brother Ben had been pastor for 27 years. Thousands more, mostly African Americans, stood outside in the rain throughout the service, listening on the public address system as speakers, including Harry Belafonte, paid tribute. Robeson was cremated and his ashes were interred in the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York with a grave marker that states, "The Artist Must Fight For Freedom Or Slavery. I Made My Choice. I Had No Alternative."
Legacy
Along with Langston Hughes, Richard Wright and Josephine Baker, Robeson was one of the first African American artist/activists. He is also one of the forerunners of the civil rights movement and the first black artist to refuse segregated audiences. During the 1960s radical black activists such as Malcolm X and members of SNCC referenced and praised Robeson's controversial stances. On the international political scene, Robeson's legacy included influences on the African Independence movements and his work was cited by Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela, Kenyan president Jomo Kenyatta and Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah and other post-colonialist leaders. American Jews continue to celebrate his memory as an ally, as do the people of Wales. In the arts, his popularizing of Negro Spirituals has been cited and paid tribute to by singers including Sir Willard White. While film industry figures and historians have written of his groundbreaking work in cinema as the first major black actor unwilling to play stereotypes.
Paul Robeson Archives
The Paul Robeson Archive was established in East Berlin in 1965. Robeson was a popular figure in East Germany, where he received an honorary doctorate from Humboldt University in 1960 among other awards. The archives were founded by Victor Grossman, a journalist for GDR radio and are now located at the John F. Kennedy School in Berlin. Due to meticulous collecting by Eslanda Robeson, over 55,000 pieces of Robeson related memorabilia, film, books, photos and ephemera were archived and cataloged into "The Paul and Eslanda Robeson Archives". The collection is held at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University.
Omission from and restoration to historical records
Due to Robeson's lengthy and extensive blacklisting during the 1950s, his long career and achievements are difficult to find in most American mainstream interpretations of history, including in-depth books on sports history, entertainment, civil rights and black history. In the United States very little media footage of Robeson now exists, even in the Library of Congress, as the majority of U.S. newsreel footage has been either destroyed or had the sound erased.Despite Robeson's lengthy theater career, Brooks Atkinson, ''The New York Times'' theater critic from 1925 to 1960, included just a one-sentence reference to Robeson in his 1970 book ''Broadway'', advertised as "an in-depth history of American theater". Atkinson chronicles African-American performers, ''Show Boat'' and Eugene O'Neill, but only mentions Robeson briefly in context with ''Othello''. In the early 1970s, ''The New York Times'' and ''The New York Daily News'' both ran extensive pieces on black actors who played Othello with no mention of Robeson.
In 1967, ''The New York Times'' also incorrectly said that during the 1950s (when he was without his passport), Robeson had chosen a "long exile in the Soviet Union...." Robeson's name was also not listed in the American edition of Marquis Who's Who, appearing in only the international editions. In the early 1970s, Rutgers professor Eugene H. Robinson found that Robeson was not mentioned in nine different American encyclopedias. Professor Harold Weaver estimated that 75% of black students at Rutgers did not know who Robeson was.
In 1949, Robeson's name had been retroactively struck from the roster of the 1917 and 1918 college All-America football teams. In 1995, 45 years after its erasure, Robeson's name was fully restored to the Rutgers University sports records and he was named to the College Football Hall of Fame.
Posthumous honors
1970s
The first memorial following Robeson's 1976 funeral was a tribute held in US House of Representatives January 28, 1976. Throughout 1976 memorials were held at Rutgers; The World Peace Council in Athens, Greece; Columbia University, New York City; Toronto; Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.; and by Actor's Equity in Los Angeles. On October 8, 1976, Artist's Tribute to the Life of Paul Robeson, was held at Carnegie Hall, as a benefit for the Paul Robeson Archive. Sidney Poitier proclaimed, "When Paul Robeson died, it marked the passing of a magnificent giant whose presence among us conferred nobility upon us all..." In 1979 Poitier narrated a short, winning film, ''Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist''. Directed by Saul J. Turell, it won an Academy Award for best short documentary.In 1976 NBC approached Paul Robeson, Jr. asking permission to create a three hour documentary on his father. Robeson, Jr. turned down the request, regarding it as offensive given their treatment of his father during his lifetime.
On September 6, 1977 the Paul Robeson High School opened at 6835 South Normal Boulevard in Chicago, Illinois.
Beginning in 1978, Paul Robeson's films were finally shown again on American television, with ''Show Boat'' making its cable television debut in 1983. In recent years, all of Robeson's films have appeared on Turner Classic Movies and American Movie Classics channels.
Also in 1978, the former "Stolpestrasse" in East-Berlin, Germany, was renamed Paul-Robeson-Strasse in honor of the popular performer. To this day (2011), it is still named so.
1990s
On January 18, 1995 Paul Robeson was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, a step taken by the National Football Foundation which many called "long-overdue". Rutgers-Newark also honored him posthumously by naming the student-life campus center, and art gallery after him. and Rutgers University New Brunswick Campus named one of their cultural centers, The Paul Robeson Cultural Center. and the Rutgers-Camden campus also named their library, the Paul Robeson Library.During the centenary of Paul Robeson's birth in 1998, around the world, over four hundred celebrations took place with over twenty Robeson centennial events held in the San Francisco Bay area alone. These included film showings, musical and educational programs, art exhibitions, a two-hour PBS documentary, as well as the presentation of the Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award. President Bill Clinton sent a greeting to celebration of the Robeson Centennial in Westchester County, New York, stating: "A century after Paul Robeson's birth, we live in a nation that is stronger because of his vision and eloquent voice."
In 1998 the San Francisco Bay Area Post of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade presented "Paul Robeson: The Artist Must Take Sides" in tribute. The program consisted of a dramatic performance by the San Francisco Mime Troupe, with slides and commentary, and keynote speaker Professor Sterling Stuckey. Paul Robeson's image is also featured prominently in a historical monument dedicated to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade which was unveiled on The Embarcadero, San Francisco in 2008 by actor Peter Coyote.
2000s
Robeson has remained a celebrated cultural figure in Wales. The exhibition ''Let Paul Robeson Sing!'' was unveiled in Cardiff in 2001. A number of Welsh artists have celebrated Robeson's life: the Manic Street Preachers' song "Let Robeson Sing" appears on the album ''Know Your Enemy''. Martyn Joseph's song "Proud Valley Boy" on his 2005 album ''Deep Blue'' is also based on Robeson's Welsh connections. In 2010 Susan Robeson launched a project by Swansea University and the Welsh Assembly, to create an online learning resource in her grandfather's memory.An English Heritage Blue Plaque was unveiled in 2002 at the house in Hampstead, London where Robeson resided during the 1920s and 1930s.
In 2004 Paul Robeson was featured on a US postage stamp, the 27th stamp in the Black Heritage Series. The Stamp Unveiling Ceremony was held at Princeton University, with Paul Robeson, Jr. participating.
In 2006 a Tribute to Paul Robeson was held at the School of Oriental and African Studies.
On September 26, 2009, Edgecombe Avenue and 160th Street in Washington Heights, Manhattan, were renamed as Paul Robeson Boulevard and Count Basie Place.
In August 2011, Tayo Aluko's one-man play "Call Mr. Robeson" was featured in the New York International Fringe Festival. It will be performed in New York's Carnegie Hall on February 12, 2012.
Published works
Filmography
Notes
References
Further reading
Film documentaries about Robeson
External links
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| name | Charlie Chaplin |
|---|---|
| birth name | |
| birth date | April 16, 1889 |
| birth place | Walworth, London, United Kingdom |
| death date | |
| death place | Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland |
| medium | Film, music, mimicry |
| nationality | British |
| active | 1895–1976 |
| genre | Slapstick, mime, visual comedy |
| influenced | Marcel MarceauThe Three StoogesFederico FelliniMilton BerlePeter SellersRowan AtkinsonJohnny DeppJacques Tati |
| spouse | 1 child 2 children 8 children |
| Signature | Firma de Charles Chaplin.svg }} |
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE (16 April 1889 25 December 1977) was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I. Chaplin used mime, slapstick and other visual comedy routines, and continued well into the era of the talkies, though his films decreased in frequency from the end of the 1920s. His most famous role was that of The Tramp, which he first played in the Keystone comedy ''Kid Auto Races at Venice'' in 1914. From the April 1914 one-reeler ''Twenty Minutes of Love'' onwards he was writing and directing most of his films, by 1916 he was also producing them, and from 1918 he was even composing the music for them. With Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith, he co-founded United Artists in 1919.
Chaplin was one of the most creative and influential personalities of the silent-film era. He was influenced by his predecessor, the French silent film comedian Max Linder, to whom he dedicated one of his films. His working life in entertainment spanned over 75 years, from the Victorian stage and the music hall in the United Kingdom as a child performer, until close to his death at the age of 88. His high-profile public and private life encompassed both adulation and controversy. Chaplin's identification with the left ultimately forced him to resettle in Europe during the McCarthy era in the early 1950s.
In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Chaplin the 10th greatest male screen legend of all time. In 2008, Martin Sieff, in a review of the book ''Chaplin: A Life'', wrote: "Chaplin was not just 'big', he was gigantic. In 1915, he burst onto a war-torn world bringing it the gift of comedy, laughter and relief while it was tearing itself apart through World War I. Over the next 25 years, through the Great Depression and the rise of Adolf Hitler, he stayed on the job. ... It is doubtful any individual has ever given more entertainment, pleasure and relief to so many human beings when they needed it the most". George Bernard Shaw called Chaplin "the only genius to come out of the movie industry".
Biography
Early life in London (1889–1909)
Charles Spencer Chaplin was born on 16 April 1889, supposedly in East Street, Walworth, London, England. (In 2011, a letter, written to him in the 1970s, came to light, claiming that he had been born in a Gypsy caravan at Black Patch Park in Smethwick, Staffordshire.) His parents were entertainers in the music hall tradition; his father, Charles Spencer Chaplin Sr, was a vocalist and an actor while his mother, Hannah Chaplin, was a singer and an actress who went by the stage name Lilly Harley. They separated before Charlie was three. He learned singing from his parents. The 1891 census shows that his mother lived with Charlie and his older half-brother Sydney on Barlow Street, Walworth.As a child, Chaplin also lived with his mother in various addresses in and around Kennington Road in Lambeth, including 3 Pownall Terrace, Chester Street and 39 Methley Street. His paternal grandmother's mother was from the Smith family of Romanichals, a fact of which he was extremely proud, though he described it in his autobiography as "the skeleton in our family cupboard". Charles Chaplin Sr. was an alcoholic and had little contact with his son, though Chaplin and his half-brother briefly lived with him and his mistress, Louise, at 287 Kennington Road. The half-brothers lived there while their mentally ill mother lived at Cane Hill Asylum at Coulsdon. Chaplin's father's mistress sent the boy to Archbishop Temple's Boys School. His father died of cirrhosis when Charlie was twelve in 1901. As of the 1901 Census, Chaplin resided at 94 Ferndale Road, Lambeth, as part of a troupe of young male dancers, The Eight Lancashire Lads, managed by William Jackson.
A larynx condition ended the singing career of Hannah Chaplin. After her re-admission to the Cane Hill Asylum, her son was left in the workhouse at Lambeth in south London, moving several weeks later to the Central London District School for paupers in Hanwell.
In 1903 Chaplin secured the role of Billy the pageboy in ''Sherlock Holmes'', written by William Gillette and starring English actor H. A. Saintsbury. Saintsbury took Chaplin under his wing and taught him to marshal his talents. In 1905 Gillette came to England with Marie Doro to debut his new play, ''Clarice'', but the play did not go well. When Gillette staged his one-act curtain-raiser, ''The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes'' as a joke on the British press, Chaplin was brought in from the provinces to play Billy. When ''Sherlock Holmes'' was substituted for ''Clarice'', Chaplin remained as Billy until the production ended on 2 December. During the run, Gillette coached Chaplin in his restrained acting style. It was during this engagement that the teenage Chaplin fell hopelessly in love with Doro, but his love went unrequited and Doro returned to America with Gillette when the production closed.
They met again in Hollywood eleven years later. She had forgotten his name but, when introduced to her, Chaplin told her of being silently in love with her and how she had broken his young heart. Over dinner, he laid it on thick about his unrequited love. Nothing came of it until two years later, when they were both in New York and she invited him to dinner and a drive. Instead, Chaplin noted, they simply “dined quietly in Marie’s apartment alone.” However, as Kenneth Lynn pointed out, “Chaplin would not have been Chaplin if he had simply dined quietly with Marie.”
First years in the United States (1910–1913)
Chaplin first toured the United States with the Fred Karno troupe from 1910 to 1912. After five months in England, he returned to the U.S. for a second tour, arriving with the Karno Troupe on 2 October 1912. In the Karno Company was Arthur Stanley Jefferson, who later became known as Stan Laurel. Chaplin and Laurel shared a room in a boarding house. Laurel returned to England but Chaplin remained in the United States. In late 1913, Chaplin's act with the Karno Troupe was seen by Mack Sennett, Mabel Normand, Minta Durfee, and "Fatty" Arbuckle. Sennett hired him for his studio, the Keystone Film Company as a replacement for Ford Sterling. Chaplin had considerable difficulty adjusting to the demands of film acting and his performance suffered for it. After Chaplin's first film appearance, ''Making a Living'' was filmed, Sennett felt he had made a costly mistake. Most historians agree it was Normand who persuaded him to give Chaplin another chance.Sennett did not warm to Chaplin right away, and Chaplin believed Sennett intended to fire him following a disagreement with Normand. However, Chaplin's pictures were soon a success, and he became one of the biggest stars at Keystone.
Chaplin was given over to Normand, who directed and wrote a handful of his earliest films. Chaplin did not enjoy being directed by a woman, and they often disagreed. Eventually, the two worked out their differences and remained friends long after Chaplin left Keystone.
The Tramp (1914–1915)
The Tramp debuted during the silent film era in the Keystone comedy ''Kid Auto Races at Venice'' (released on 7 February 1914). However, Chaplin had devised the tramp costume for a film produced a few days earlier but released later (9 February 1914), ''Mabel's Strange Predicament''. Mack Sennett had requested that Chaplin "get into a comedy make-up". As Chaplin recalled in his autobiography: }}"The Tramp" is a vagrant with the refined manners, clothes, and dignity of a gentleman. Arbuckle contributed his father-in-law's bowler hat ('derby') and his own pants (of generous proportions). Chester Conklin provided the little cutaway tailcoat, and Ford Sterling the size-14 shoes, which were so big, Chaplin had to wear each on the wrong foot to keep them on. He devised the moustache from a bit of crepe hair belonging to Mack Swain. The only thing Chaplin himself owned was the whangee cane.
Chaplin, with his Little Tramp character, quickly became the most popular star in Sennett's company of players. He immediately gained enormous popularity among cinema audiences. "The Tramp", Chaplin's principal character, was known as "Charlot" in the French-speaking world, Italy, Spain, Andorra, Portugal, Greece, Romania and Turkey, "Carlitos" in Brazil and Argentina, and "Der Vagabund" in Germany.
Chaplin continued to play the Tramp through dozens of short films and, later, feature-length productions (in only a handful of other productions did he play characters other than the Tramp). He portrayed a Keystone Kop in ''A Thief Catcher'' filmed 5–26 Jan 1914.
The Tramp was closely identified with the silent era, and was considered an international character; when the sound era began in the late 1920s, Chaplin refused to make a talkie featuring the character. The 1931 production ''City Lights'' featured no dialogue. Chaplin officially retired the character in the film ''Modern Times'' (released 5 February 1936), which appropriately ended with the Tramp walking down an endless highway toward the horizon. The film was only a partial talkie and is often called the last silent film. The Tramp remains silent until near the end of the film when, for the first time, his voice is finally heard, albeit only as part of a French/Italian-derived gibberish song.
Chaplin's early Keystones use the standard Mack Sennett formula of extreme physical comedy and exaggerated gestures. Chaplin's pantomime was subtler, more suitable to romantic and domestic farces than to the usual Keystone chases and mob scenes. The visual gags were pure Keystone, however; the tramp character would aggressively assault his enemies with kicks and bricks. Moviegoers loved this cheerfully earthy new comedian, even though critics warned that his antics bordered on vulgarity. Chaplin was soon entrusted with directing and editing his own films. He made 34 shorts for Sennett during his first year in pictures, as well as the landmark comedy feature ''Tillie's Punctured Romance''.
The Tramp was featured in the first film trailer to be exhibited in a U.S. cinema, a slide promotion developed by Nils Granlund, advertising manager for the Marcus Loew theatre chain, and shown at the Loew's Seventh Avenue Theatre in Harlem in 1914. In 1915, Chaplin signed a much more favourable contract with Essanay Studios, and further developed his cinematic skills, adding new levels of depth and pathos to the Keystone-style slapstick. Most of the Essanay films were more ambitious, running twice as long as the average Keystone comedy. Chaplin also developed his own stock company, including ingénue Edna Purviance and comic villains Leo White and Bud Jamison.
Chaplin's popularity continued to soar in the early years following the start of WW1. He started to become noticed by stars of the legitimate theatre. Minnie Maddern Fiske, one of the legends of the stage endorsed Chaplin's artistry in an article in Harper's Weekly(6 May 1915). At the start of her article Mrs. Fiske spoke, "...To the writer Charles Chaplin appears as a great comic artist, possessing inspirational powers and a technique as unfaltering as Rejane's. If it be treason to Art to say this, then let those exalted persons who allow culture to be defined only upon their own terms make the most of it..." In the following years Chaplin would make many friends from the world of the Broadway stage.
Chaplin was emerging as the supreme exponent of silent films, an emigrant himself from London. Chaplin's Tramp enacted the difficulties and humiliations of the immigrant underdog, the constant struggle at the bottom of the American heap and yet he triumphed over adversity without ever rising to the top, and thereby stayed in touch with his audience. Chaplin's films were also deliciously subversive. The bumbling officials enabled the immigrants to laugh at those they feared.
Pioneering film artist and global celebrity (1916–1918)
In 1916, the Mutual Film Corporation paid Chaplin US$670,000 to produce a dozen two-reel comedies. He was given near complete artistic control, and produced twelve films over an eighteen-month period that rank among the most influential comedy films in all cinema. Of his Mutual comedies, the best known include: ''Easy Street'', ''One A.M.'', ''The Pawnshop'', and ''The Adventurer''. Edna Purviance remained the leading lady, and Chaplin added Eric Campbell, Henry Bergman, and Albert Austin to his stock company; Campbell, a Gilbert and Sullivan veteran, provided superb villainy, and second bananas Bergman and Austin would remain with Chaplin for decades. Chaplin regarded the Mutual period as the happiest of his career, although he also had concerns that the films during that time were becoming formulaic owing to the stringent production schedule his contract required. Upon the U.S. entering World War I, Chaplin became a spokesman for Liberty Bonds with his close friend Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford.Most of the Chaplin films in circulation date from his Keystone, Essanay, and Mutual periods. After Chaplin assumed control of his productions in 1918 (and kept exhibitors and audiences waiting for them), entrepreneurs serviced the demand for Chaplin by bringing back his older comedies. The films were recut, retitled, and reissued again and again, first for theatres, then for the home-film market, and in recent years, for home video. Even Essanay was guilty of this practice, fashioning "new" Chaplin comedies from old film clips and out-takes. The twelve Mutual comedies were revamped as sound films in 1933, when producer Amadee J. Van Beuren added new orchestral scores and sound effects.
At the conclusion of the Mutual contract in 1917, Chaplin signed a contract with First National to produce eight two-reel films. First National financed and distributed these pictures (1918–23) but otherwise gave him complete creative control over production. Chaplin now had his own studio, and he could work at a more relaxed pace that allowed him to focus on quality. Although First National expected Chaplin to deliver short comedies like the celebrated Mutuals, Chaplin ambitiously expanded most of his personal projects into longer, feature-length films, including ''Shoulder Arms'' (1918), ''The Pilgrim'' (1923) and the feature-length classic ''The Kid'' (1921).
United Artists (1919–1939)
In 1919, Chaplin co-founded the United Artists film distribution company with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith, all of whom were seeking to escape the growing power consolidation of film distributors and financiers in the developing Hollywood studio system. This move, along with complete control of his film production through his studio, assured Chaplin's independence as a film-maker. He served on the board of UA until the early 1950s.
All Chaplin's United Artists pictures were of feature length, beginning with the atypical drama in which Chaplin had only a brief cameo role, ''A Woman of Paris'' (1923). This was followed by the classic comedies ''The Gold Rush'' (1925) and ''The Circus'' (1928).
After the arrival of sound films, Chaplin continued to focus on silent films with a synchronised recorded score, which included sound effects and music with melodies based in popular songs or composed by him; ''The Circus'' (1928), ''City Lights'' (1931), and ''Modern Times'' (1936) were essentially silent films. ''City Lights'' has been praised for its mixture of comedy and sentimentality. Critic James Agee, for example, wrote in ''Life'' magazine in 1949 that the final scene in ''City Lights'' was the "greatest single piece of acting ever committed to celluloid".
While ''Modern Times'' (1936) is a non-talkie, it does contain talk—usually coming from inanimate objects such as a radio or a TV monitor. This was done to help 1930s audiences, who were out of the habit of watching silent films, adjust to not hearing dialogue. ''Modern Times'' was the first film where Chaplin's voice is heard (in the nonsense song at the end, which Chaplin both performed and wrote the nonsense lyrics to). However, for most viewers it is still considered a silent film.
Although "talkies" became the dominant mode of film making soon after they were introduced in 1927, Chaplin resisted making such a film all through the 1930s. He considered cinema essentially a pantomimic art. He said: "Action is more generally understood than words. Like Chinese symbolism, it will mean different things according to its scenic connotation. Listen to a description of some unfamiliar object—an African warthog, for example; then look at a picture of the animal and see how surprised you are".
It is a tribute to Chaplin's versatility that he also has one film credit for choreography for the 1952 film ''Limelight'', and another as a singer for the title music of ''The Circus'' (1928). The best known of several songs he composed are "Smile", composed for the film ''Modern Times'' (1936) and given lyrics to help promote a 1950s revival of the film, famously covered by Nat King Cole. "This Is My Song" from Chaplin's last film, ''A Countess from Hong Kong'', was a number one hit in several different languages in the late 1960s (most notably the version by Petula Clark and discovery of an unreleased version in the 1990s recorded in 1967 by Judith Durham of The Seekers), and Chaplin's theme from ''Limelight'' was a hit in the 1950s under the title "Eternally." Chaplin's score to ''Limelight'' won an Academy Award in 1972; a delay in the film premiering in Los Angeles made it eligible decades after it was filmed. Chaplin also wrote scores for his earlier silent films when they were re-released in the sound era, notably ''The Kid'' for its 1971 re-release.
''The Great Dictator'' (1940)
Chaplin's first talking picture, ''The Great Dictator'' (1940), was an act of defiance against Nazism. It was filmed and released in the United States one year before the U.S. entry into World War II. Chaplin played the role of "Adenoid Hynkel", Dictator of Tomainia, modelled on German dictator Adolf Hitler, who was only four days his junior and sported a similar moustache. The film also showcased comedian Jack Oakie as "Benzino Napaloni", dictator of Bacteria, a jab at Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.Paulette Goddard filmed with Chaplin again, depicting a woman in the ghetto. The film was seen as an act of courage in the political environment of the time, both for its ridicule of Nazism, for the portrayal of overt Jewish characters, and the depiction of their persecution. In addition to Hynkel, Chaplin also played a look-alike Jewish barber persecuted by the regime. The barber physically resembled the Tramp character.
At the conclusion, the two characters Chaplin portrayed swapped positions through a complex plot, and he dropped out of his comic character to address the audience directly in a speech denouncing dictatorship, greed, hate, and intolerance, in favour of liberty and human brotherhood.
The film was nominated for Academy awards for Best Picture (producer), Best Original Screenplay (writer) and Best Actor.
McCarthy era
Although Chaplin had his major successes in the United States and was a resident from 1914 to 1953, he always maintained a neutral nationalistic stance. During the era of McCarthyism, Chaplin was accused of "un-American activities" as a suspected communist and J. Edgar Hoover, who had instructed the FBI to keep extensive secret files on him, tried to end his United States residency. FBI pressure on Chaplin grew after his 1942 campaign for a second European front in the war and reached a critical level in the late 1940s, when Congressional figures threatened to call him as a witness in hearings. This was never done, probably from fear of Chaplin's ability to lampoon the investigators.In 1952, Chaplin left the US for what was intended as a brief trip home to the United Kingdom for the London premiere of ''Limelight''. Hoover learned of the trip and negotiated with the Immigration and Naturalization Service to revoke Chaplin's re-entry permit, exiling Chaplin so he could not return for his alleged political leanings. Chaplin decided not to re-enter the United States, writing: "Since the end of the last world war, I have been the object of lies and propaganda by powerful reactionary groups who, by their influence and by the aid of America's yellow press, have created an unhealthy atmosphere in which liberal-minded individuals can be singled out and persecuted. Under these conditions I find it virtually impossible to continue my motion-picture work, and I have therefore given up my residence in the United States."
That Chaplin was unprepared to remain abroad, or that the revocation of his right to re-enter the United States by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was a surprise to him, may be apocryphal: An anecdote in some contradiction is recorded during a broad interview with Richard Avedon, celebrated New York portraitist.
Avedon is credited with the last portrait of the entertainer to be taken before his departure to Europe and therefore, the last photograph of him as a singularly “American icon.” According to Avedon, Chaplin telephoned him at his studio in New York City, while on a layover for transportation connections before the final leg of his travel to England. The photographer considered the impromptu self-introduction a prank and angrily answered his caller with the riposte, “If you’re Charlie Chaplin, I’m Franklin Roosevelt!” To mollify Avedon, Chaplin assured the photographer of his authenticity and added the comment, “If you want to take my picture, you better do it now. They are coming after me and I won’t be back. I leave ... (imminently).” Avedon interrupted his production commitments to take Chaplin’s portrait the next day, and never personally saw Chaplin again.
Chaplin then made his home in Vevey, Switzerland. He briefly and triumphantly returned to the United States in April 1972, with his wife, to receive an Honorary Oscar, and also to discuss how his films would be re-released and marketed.
Final works (1957–1976)
Chaplin's final two films were made in London: ''A King in New York'' (1957) in which he starred, wrote, directed and produced; and ''A Countess from Hong Kong'' (1967), which he directed, produced, and wrote. The latter film stars Sophia Loren and Marlon Brando, and Chaplin made his final on-screen appearance in a brief cameo role as a seasick steward. He also composed the music for both films with the theme song from ''A Countess From Hong Kong,'' "This is My Song", reaching number one in the UK as sung by Petula Clark. Chaplin also compiled a film ''The Chaplin Revue'' from three First National films ''A Dog's Life'' (1918), ''Shoulder Arms'' (1918) and ''The Pilgrim'' (1923) for which he composed the music and recorded an introductory narration. As well as directing these final films, Chaplin also wrote ''My Autobiography,'' between 1959 and 1963, which was published in 1964.
In his pictorial autobiography ''My Life In Pictures'', published in 1974, Chaplin indicated that he had written a screenplay for his daughter, Victoria; entitled ''The Freak'', the film would have cast her as an angel. According to Chaplin, a script was completed and pre-production rehearsals had begun on the film (the book includes a photograph of Victoria in costume), but were halted when Victoria married. "I mean to make it some day," Chaplin wrote. However, his health declined steadily in the 1970s which hampered all hopes of the film ever being produced.
From 1969 until 1976, Chaplin wrote original music compositions and scores for his silent pictures and re-released them. He composed the scores of all his First National shorts: ''The Idle Class'' in 1971 (paired with The Kid for re-release in 1972), ''A Day's Pleasure'' in 1973, ''Pay Day'' in 1972, ''Sunnyside'' in 1974, and of his feature length films firstly ''The Circus'' in 1969 and ''The Kid'' in 1971. Chaplin worked with music associate Eric James whilst composing all his scores.
Chaplin's last completed work was the score for his 1923 film ''A Woman of Paris'', which was completed in 1976, by which time Chaplin was extremely frail, even finding communication difficult.
Death (1977)
Chaplin's robust health began to slowly fail in the late 1960s, after the completion of his final film ''A Countess from Hong Kong'', and more rapidly after he received his Academy Award in 1972. By 1977, he had difficulty communicating, and was using a wheelchair. Chaplin died in his sleep in Vevey, Switzerland on Christmas Day 1977.Chaplin was interred in Corsier-Sur-Vevey Cemetery, Switzerland. On 1 March 1978, his corpse was stolen by a small group of Swiss mechanics in an attempt to extort money from his family. The plot failed; the robbers were captured, and the corpse was recovered eleven weeks later near Lake Geneva. His body was reburied under of concrete to prevent further attempts.
Filmmaking techniques
Chaplin never spoke more than cursorily about his filmmaking methods, claiming such a thing would be tantamount to a magician spoiling his own illusion. In fact, until he began making spoken dialogue films with ''The Great Dictator'' in 1940, Chaplin never shot from a completed script. The method he developed, once his Essanay contract gave him the freedom to write for and direct himself, was to start from a vague premise—for example "Charlie enters a health spa" or "Charlie works in a pawn shop." Chaplin then had sets constructed and worked with his stock company to improvise gags and "business" around them, almost always working the ideas out on film. As ideas were accepted and discarded, a narrative structure would emerge, frequently requiring Chaplin to reshoot an already-completed scene that might have otherwise contradicted the story. Chaplin's unique filmmaking techniques became known only after his death, when his rare surviving outtakes and cut sequences were carefully examined in the 1983 British documentary ''Unknown Chaplin''.This is one reason why Chaplin took so much longer to complete his films than his rivals did. In addition, Chaplin was an incredibly exacting director, showing his actors exactly how he wanted them to perform and shooting scores of takes until he had the shot he wanted. Animator Chuck Jones, who lived near Charlie Chaplin's Lone Star studio as a boy, remembered his father saying he watched Chaplin shoot a scene more than a hundred times until he was satisfied with it. This combination of story improvisation and relentless perfectionism—which resulted in days of effort and thousands of feet of film being wasted, all at enormous expense—often proved very taxing for Chaplin, who in frustration would often lash out at his actors and crew, keep them waiting idly for hours or, in extreme cases, shutting down production altogether.
Comparison with other silent comics
Since the 1960s, Chaplin's films have been compared to those of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd (the other two great silent film comedians of the time), especially among the loyal fans of each comic.The three had different styles: Chaplin had a strong affinity for sentimentality and pathos (which was popular in the 1920s), Lloyd was renowned for his everyman persona and 1920s optimism, and Keaton adhered to onscreen stoicism with a cynical tone more suited to modern audiences.
Commercially, Chaplin made some of the highest-grossing films in the silent era; ''The Gold Rush'' is the fifth with US$4.25 million and ''The Circus'' is the seventh with US$3.8 million. However, Chaplin's films combined made about US$10.5 million while Harold Lloyd's grossed US$15.7 million. Lloyd was far more prolific, releasing twelve feature films in the 1920s while Chaplin released just three. Buster Keaton's films were not nearly as commercially successful as Chaplin's or Lloyd's even at the height of his popularity, and only received belated critical acclaim in the late 1950s and 1960s.
There is evidence that Chaplin and Keaton, who both got their start in vaudeville, thought highly of one another: Keaton stated in his autobiography that Chaplin was the greatest comedian that ever lived, and the greatest comedy director, whereas Chaplin welcomed Keaton to United Artists in 1925, advised him against his disastrous move to MGM in 1928, and for his last American film, ''Limelight'', wrote a part specifically for Keaton as his first on-screen comedy partner since 1915.
Composer and songwriter
Chaplin wrote or co-wrote the scores and songs for many of his films. "Smile", which he composed for his film, ''Modern Times'', hit number 2 on the UK charts when sung by Nat King Cole in the 1950s. It was also Michael Jackson's favourite song. "This Is My Song", written and composed by Chaplin for his film, ''A Countess from Hong Kong'', hit number 1 on the UK charts when sung by Petula Clark in the 1960s. In 1973, Chaplin won the Oscar for Best Film Score for his film, ''Limelight''. Chaplin was not the only member of his family with musical talent; his nephew, Spencer Dryden was the drummer for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted band, Jefferson Airplane.
Politics
Chaplin's political sympathies always lay with the left. His silent films made prior to the Great Depression typically did not contain overt political themes or messages, apart from the Tramp's plight in poverty and his run-ins with the law, but his 1930s films were more openly political. ''Modern Times'' depicts workers and poor people in dismal conditions. The final dramatic speech in ''The Great Dictator'', which was critical of following patriotic nationalism without question, and his vocal public support for the opening of a second European front in 1942 to assist the Soviet Union in World War II were controversial.Chaplin declined to support the war effort as he had done for World War I which led to public anger, although his two sons saw service in the Army in Europe. For most of World War II he was fighting serious criminal and civil charges related to his involvement with actress Joan Barry (see below). After the war, his 1947 black comedy, ''Monsieur Verdoux'' showed a critical view of capitalism. Chaplin's final American film, ''Limelight'', was less political and more autobiographical in nature. His following European-made film, ''A King in New York'' (1957), satirised the political persecution and paranoia that had forced him to leave the U.S. five years earlier.
On religion, Chaplin wrote in his autobiography, “In Philadelphia, I inadvertently came upon an edition of Robert Ingersoll's Essays and Lectures. This was an exciting discovery; his atheism confirmed my own belief that the horrific cruelty of the Old Testament was degrading to the human spirit.”
Other controversies
During World War I, Chaplin was criticised in the British press for not joining the Army. He had in fact presented himself for service, but was denied for being too small at 5'5" and underweight. Chaplin raised substantial funds for the war effort during war bond drives not only with public speaking at rallies but also by making, at his own expense, ''The Bond'', a comedic propaganda film used in 1918. The lingering controversy may have prevented Chaplin from receiving a knighthood in the 1930s. A 1916 propaganda short film ''Zepped'' with Chaplin was discovered in 2009.For Chaplin's entire career, some level of controversy existed over claims of Jewish ancestry. Nazi propaganda in the 1930s and 40s prominently portrayed him as Jewish (named Karl Tonstein) relying on articles published in the U.S. press before, and FBI investigations of Chaplin in the late 1940s also focused on Chaplin's ethnic origins. There is no documentary evidence of Jewish ancestry for Chaplin himself. For his entire public life, he fiercely refused to challenge or refute claims that he was Jewish, saying that to do so would always "play directly into the hands of anti-Semites." Although baptised in the Church of England, Chaplin was thought to be an agnostic for most of his life.
Chaplin's lifelong attraction to younger women remains another enduring source of interest to some. His biographers have attributed this to a teenage infatuation with Hetty Kelly, whom he met in Britain while performing in the music hall, and which possibly defined his feminine ideal. Chaplin clearly relished the role of discovering and closely guiding young female stars; with the exception of Mildred Harris, all of his marriages and most of his major relationships began in this manner.
Personal life and family
Chaplin's mother died in 1928 in Glendale, California, seven years after she was brought to the U.S. by her sons. Unknown to Charlie and Sydney until years later, they had a half-brother through their mother. The boy, Wheeler Dryden (1892–1957), was raised abroad by his father but later connected with the rest of the family and went to work for Chaplin at his Hollywood studio.The South African duo Locnville, Andrew and Brian Chaplin, are related to Chaplin (their grandfather was Chaplin's first cousin).
Relationships
Hetty Kelly was Chaplin's first love, a dancer with whom he fell in love when she was fifteen and almost married when he was nineteen, in 1908. It is said Chaplin fell madly in love with her and asked her to marry him. When she refused, Chaplin suggested it would be best if they did not see each other again; he was reportedly crushed when she agreed. Years later, her memory would remain an obsession with Chaplin. He was devastated in 1921 when he learned that she had died of influenza during the 1918 flu pandemic.
Children
| ! Child | ! Birth | ! Death | ! Chaplin's Age at Time of Birth | ! Mother | ! Grandchildren |
| Norman Spencer Chaplin | 7 July 1919 | 10 July 1919 | |
Mildred Harris | |
| 5 May 1925 | 20 March 1968 | |
Susan Maree Chaplin (b 1959) | ||
| 31 March 1926 | 3 March 2009 | |
Stephan Chaplin (b 19xx) | ||
| Carol Ann Barry Chaplin (Disputed) | 2 October 1943 | |
Unknown | ||
| 31 July 1944 | |
Shane Saura Chaplin (b 1974) Oona Castilla Chaplin (b 1986) | |||
| 7 March 1946 | |
Kathleen Chaplin (b. 1975) Dolores Chaplin (b. 1979) Carmen Chaplin (b 19xx) George Chaplin (b 19xx) | |||
| 28 March 1949 | |
Julien Ronet (b. 1980) | |||
| Victoria Chaplin | 19 May 1951 | |
Aurélia Thiérrée (b. 1971) James Thiérrée (b. 1974) | ||
| 23 August 1953 | |
Kiera Chaplin (b. 1982) | |||
| Jane Cecil Chaplin | 23 May 1957 | |
|||
| Annette Emily Chaplin | 3 December 1959 | |
Orson Salkind (b. 1986) Osceola Salkind (b. 1994) | ||
| 6 July 1962 | |
Awards and recognition
Chaplin was knighted in 1975 at the age of 85 as a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II. The honour had been first proposed in 1931. Knighthood was suggested again in 1956, but was vetoed after a Foreign Office report raised concerns over Chaplin's purported "communist" views and his moral behaviour in marrying two 16 year girls; it was felt that honouring him would damage both the reputation of the British honours system and relations with the United States.
Among other recognitions, Chaplin was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1970; that he had not been among those originally honoured in 1961 caused some controversy. Chaplin's Swiss mansion is to be opened as a museum tracing his life from the music halls in London to Hollywood fame.
A statue of Charlie Chaplin was made by John Doubleday, to stand in Leicester Square in London. It was unveiled by Sir Ralph Richardson in 1981. A bronze statue of him is at Waterville, County Kerry.
Academy Awards
Chaplin received three Academy Awards in his lifetime: one for Best Original Score, and two Honorary Awards. However, during his active years as a filmmaker, Chaplin expressed disdain for the Academy Awards; his son Charles Jr wrote that Chaplin invoked the ire of the Academy in the 1930s by jokingly using his 1929 Oscar as a doorstop. This may help explain why ''City Lights'' and ''Modern Times,'' considered by several polls to be two of the greatest of all motion pictures, were not nominated for a single Academy Award.The 1st Academy Awards ceremony: When the first Oscars were awarded on 16 May 1929, the voting audit procedures that now exists had not yet been put into place, and the categories were still very fluid. Chaplin's ''The Circus'' was set to be heavily recognised, as Chaplin had originally been nominated for Best Production, Best Director in a Comedy Picture, Best Actor and Best Writing (Original Story). However, the Academy decided to withdraw his name from all the competitive categories and instead give him a Special Award "for versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing and producing ''The Circus''". The only other film to receive a Special Award that year was ''The Jazz Singer''.
Legacy
Chaplin's "tramp" character is possibly the most imitated on all levels of entertainment. Chaplin once entered a "Chaplin look-alike" competition and didn't even make the final round. The influence of his 'Tramp' character could be seen on other artists and media providers. Beginning early on there were many tributes, and parodies made. Early examples include; E. C. Segar's 1916 comic strip "Charlie Chaplin's Comedy Capers". Segar would later become famous for his character Popeye, and his 'Chaplin' comics would later be collected in 1917 into five books, precursors of the later comic book format. Two different animated cartoon series also starred 'Charlie' a tramp character, the first a series of nine shorts from 1916 by Movca Film Service. And later ten films by the Pat Sullivan Studio from 1918–1919, which would later use the 'Charlie/Charley' gestures to create Felix the Cat, the character made one later appearance in one of Felix's 1923 cartoons "Felix in Hollywood". From 1917 to 1918, silent film actor Billy West made more than 20 films as a comedian precisely imitating Chaplin's tramp character, makeup and costume.
Filmography and current rights issues
Chaplin wrote, directed, and starred in dozens of feature films and short subjects. Highlights include ''The Immigrant'' (1917), ''The Gold Rush'' (1925), ''City Lights'' (1931), ''Modern Times'' (1936), and ''The Great Dictator'' (1940), all of which have been selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry. Three of these films made the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies and AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) lists: ''The Gold Rush'', ''City Lights'', and ''Modern Times''.A listing of the dozens of Chaplin films and alternate versions can be found in the Ted Okuda-David Maska book ''Charlie Chaplin at Keystone and Essanay: Dawn of the Tramp''. Thanks to The Chaplin Keystone Project, efforts to produce definitive versions of Chaplin's pre-1918 short films have come to a successful end: after ten years of research and clinical international cooperation work, 34 Keystone films have been fully restored and published in October 2010 on a 4-DVD box set. All twelve Mutual films were restored in 1975 by archivist David Shepard and Blackhawk Films, and new restorations with even more footage were released on DVD in 2006.
Today, nearly all of Chaplin's output is owned by Roy Export S.A.S. in Paris, which enforces the library's copyrights and decides how and when this material can be released. French company MK2 acts as worldwide distribution agent for the Export company. In the U.S. as of 2010, distribution is handled under license by Janus Films, with home video releases from Criterion Collection, affiliated with Janus.
See also
References
Further reading
External links
Category:1889 births Category:1977 deaths Category:19th-century English people Category:Academy Honorary Award recipients Category:Actors awarded British knighthoods Category:Actors from London Category:Articles containing video clips Category:Autobiographers Category:Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners Category:British expatriates in the United States Category:British Romani people Category:Cinema pioneers Category:English agnostics Category:English child actors Category:English comedians Category:English expatriates in Switzerland Category:English film actors Category:English film directors Category:English screenwriters Category:English silent film actors Category:English socialists Category:Erasmus Prize winners Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Category:McCarthyism Category:Mimes Category:Music hall performers Category:Romani actors Category:Romani film directors Category:Short film directors Category:Silent film comedians Category:Slapstick comedians Category:Vaudeville performers Category:Children of Entertainers
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