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- Ahab (Moby-Dick)
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Berlin
Berlin (
/bɜrˈlɪn/; German pronunciation: [bɛɐ̯ˈliːn] (
listen)) is the capital city of Germany and one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.5 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city and 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 Region, which has 5.9 million residents from over 190 nations. Located in the European Plains, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one third of the city's area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers and lakes.
First documented in the 13th century, Berlin was the capital of the Kingdom of Prussia (1701–1918), the German Empire (1871–1918), the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) and the Third Reich (1933–1945).Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world. After World War II, the city became divided into East Berlin—the capital of East Germany—and West Berlin, a West German exclave surrounded by the Berlin Wall (1961–1989). Following German reunification in 1990, the city regained its status as the capital of Germany, hosting 147 foreign embassies.
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Bundestag
The Bundestag (Federal Diet; pronounced [ˈbʊndəstaːk]) is a legislative body in Germany. In practice Germany is governed by a bicameral legislature, of which the Bundestag serves as the lower house and the Bundesrat the upper house. The Bundestag was established by the German Basic Law of 1949, as the successor to the earlier Reichstag. Norbert Lammert is the current President of the Bundestag.
With the dissolution of the German Confederation in 1866 and the founding of the German Empire (Deutsches Reich) in 1871, the Reichstag was established as the German parliament in Berlin. Two decades later, the current parliament building was erected. The Reichstag delegates were elected by direct and equal male suffrage (and not the three-class electoral system prevailing in Prussia until 1918). The Reichstag did not participate in the appointment of the Chancellor until the parliamentary reforms of October 1918. After the Revolution of November 1918 and the establishment of the Weimar Constitution, women were given the right to vote for (and serve in) the Reichstag, and the parliament could use the no-confidence vote to force the chancellor or any cabinet member to resign. In March 1933, one month after the Reichstag fire, the then president, Paul von Hindenburg, a retired war hero, gave Hitler ultimate power through Enabling Act of 1933, he remained at the post of Federal Government Chancellor (though he called himself the Führer). After this the Reichstag met only rarely to unanimously rubber-stamp the decisions of the government. It last convened on 26 April 1942.
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Canada
Canada ( /ˈkænədə/) is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean. Spanning over 9,900,000 km2 (3,800,000 sq mi), Canada is the world's second-largest country by total area, and its common border with the United States is the longest land border in the world.
The land that is now Canada has been inhabited for millennia by various Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French colonial expeditions explored, and later settled, along the region's Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy; the Canada Act 1982 severed the vestiges of legal dependence on Britain.
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East Germany
The German Democratic Republic (GDR; German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik [ˈdɔʏtʃə demoˈkʀaːtɪʃə ʀepuˈbliːk] or DDR), informally known as East Germany (German: Ostdeutschland), was a socialist state established by the USSR in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city. The GDR had an area of 107,771 km2 (41,610 mi2), bordering Czechoslovakia to the south, West Germany to the south and west, Poland to the east, and the Baltic Sea to the north. East Germany was dissolved upon joining the institutions of West Germany in the German reunification, on 3 October 1990.
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France
France (English
i/ˈfræns/ FRANSS or /ˈfrɑːns/ FRAHNSS; French: [fʁɑ̃s] ( listen)), officially the French Republic (French: République française [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is often referred to as l’Hexagone ("The Hexagon") because of the geometric shape of its territory. It is the largest western European country and it possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, covering 11,035,000 km2 (4,260,000 sq mi), just behind that of the United States (11,351,000 km2 / 4,383,000 sq mi).
Over the past 500 years, France has been a major power with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and around the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America and Southeast Asia; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built the second largest colonial empire of the time, including large portions of North, West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and many Caribbean and Pacific Islands.
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German Chancellery
The German Chancellery (German: Bundeskanzleramt) is a federal agency serving the executive office of the Chancellor, the head of the German federal government. The chief of the Chancellery (Chef des Bundeskanzleramtes) holds the rank of either a Secretary of State (Staatssekretär) or a Federal Minister (Bundesminister). The agency's primary function is to assist the Chancellor in coordinating the activities of the Federal Government. The current chief of the Chancellery is Minister Ronald Pofalla.
Bundeskanzleramt is also the name of the building in Berlin that houses the personal offices of the Chancellor and the Chancellery staff.
The current Chancellery building (opened in the spring of 2001) was designed by Charlotte Frank and Axel Schultes and was built by a joint venture of Royal BAM Group's subsidiary Wayss & Freytag and the Spanish Acciona from concrete and glass in an essentially postmodern style, though some elements of modernist style are evident. Occupying 12,000 square meters (129,166 square feet), it is also one of the largest government headquarters buildings in the world. By comparison, the new Chancellery building is eight times the size of the White House. A semi official Chancellor apartment is located on the top floor of the building. The 200 square meter two-room flat has thus far only been occupied by Gerhard Schröder; current Chancellor Angela Merkel prefers to live in her private apartment in Berlin.
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German Empire
The German Empire (German: Deutsches Kaiserreich) is the common name given to the state officially named the Deutsches Reich (literally: "German Realm"), designating Germany from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.
The German Empire consisted of 27 constituent territories (most of them ruled by royal families). While the Kingdom of Prussia contained most of the population and most of the territory of the Reich; the Prussian leadership became supplanted by German leaders and Prussia itself played a lesser role. As Dwyer (2005) points out, Prussia's "political and cultural influence had diminished considerably" by the 1890s. Its three largest neighbors were rivals Imperial Russia to the east and France to the west and ally Austria-Hungary to the south.
After 1850, Germany industrialized rapidly, with a foundation in coal, iron (and later steel), chemicals and railways. From a population of 41 million people in 1871, it grew to 68 million in 1913. From a heavily rural nation in 1815, it was now predominantly urban. During its 47 years of existence, the German Empire operated as an industrial, technological and scientific giant, receiving more Nobel Prizes in science than Britain, France, Russia and the United States combined.
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Germany
Germany (i/ˈdʒɜrməni/), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, pronounced [ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant] ( listen)), is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 81.8 million inhabitants, it is the most populous member state and the largest economy in the European Union. It is one of the major political powers of the European continent and a technological leader in many fields.
A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, was documented before AD 100. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward, and established successor kingdoms throughout much of Europe. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation while southern and western parts remained dominated by Roman Catholic denominations, with the two factions clashing in the Thirty Years' War, marking the beginning of the Catholic–Protestant divide that has characterized German society ever since. Occupied during the Napoleonic Wars, the rise of Pan-Germanism inside the German Confederation resulted in the unification of most of the German states into the German Empire in 1871 which was Prussian dominated. After the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and the subsequent military surrender in World War I, the Empire was replaced by the Weimar Republic in 1918, and partitioned in the Treaty of Versailles. Amidst the Great Depression, the Third Reich was proclaimed in 1933. The latter period was marked by Fascism and World War II. After 1945, Germany was divided by allied occupation, and evolved into two states, East Germany and West Germany. In 1990 Germany was reunified.
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Italy
Italyi/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic or the Republic of Italy (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic 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, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers some 301,338 km2 (116,347 sq mi) and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60.6 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the 23rd most populous in the world.
Rome, the capital of Italy, was for centuries a political and religious centre of Western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire and site of the Holy See. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Italy endured numerous invasions by foreign peoples, from Germanic tribes such as the Lombards and Ostrogoths, to the Byzantines and later, the Normans, among others. Centuries later, Italy became the birthplace of Maritime republics and the Renaissance, an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European thought.
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Japan
Japan
i/dʒəˈpæn/ (Japanese: 日本 Nihon or Nippon; formally 日本国 
Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, literally the State of Japan) 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", which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun".
Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest islands are Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū and Shikoku, together accounting for ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population, with over 127 million people. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes the de facto capital city of Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents.
Archaeological research indicates that people lived in Japan as early as the Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other nations followed by long periods of isolation has characterized Japan's history. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victory in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War and World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since adopting its revised constitution in 1947, Japan has maintained a unitary constitutional monarchy with an emperor and an elected parliament called the Diet.
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Nazi Germany
The Third Reich, also Nazi Germany, is the common name for Germany when it was a totalitarian state ruled by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). On 30 January 1933 Hitler became chancellor of Germany, quickly eliminating all opposition to rule as sole leader. The state idolized Hitler as its Führer ("leader"), centralizing all power in his hands. Historians have emphasized the hypnotic effect of his rhetoric on large audiences, and of his eyes in small groups. Kessel writes, "Overwhelmingly...Germans speak with mystification of Hitler's 'hypnotic' appeal..." Under the "leader principle", the Führer's word was above all other laws. Top officials reported to Hitler and followed his policies, but they had considerable autonomy. The government was not a coordinated, cooperating body, but rather a collection of factions struggling to amass power and curry favor with the Führer. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazi government restored prosperity and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending and a mixed economy of free-market and central-planning practices. Extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of the Autobahns. The return to prosperity gave the regime enormous popularity; the suppression of all opposition made Hitler's rule mostly unchallenged.
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Nordrhein-Westfalen
North Rhine-Westphalia (German: Nordrhein-Westfalen [ˈnɔɐ̯tʁaɪn vɛstˈfaːlən] ( listen)) is the most populous state of Germany, with four of the country's ten largest cities. The state was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly part of Prussia. Its capital is Düsseldorf. The state is currently run by a coalition of the Social Democrats and Greens.
Around 1 A.D. there were numerous incursions through Westphalia and perhaps even some permanent Roman or Romanized settlements. The Battle of Teutoburg Forest took place near Osnabrück (as mentioned, it is disputed whether this is in Westphalia) and some of the tribes who fought at this battle came from the area of Westphalia. Charlemagne is thought to have spent considerable time in Paderborn and nearby parts. His Saxon Wars also partly took place in what is thought of as Westphalia today. Popular legends link his adversary Widukind to places near Detmold, Bielefeld, Lemgo, Osnabrück and other places in Westphalia. Widukind was buried in Enger, which is also a subject of a legend.
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Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of 19,846 square kilometres (7,663 sq mi) and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz.English-speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz (pronounced [ˈʁaɪnlant ˈpfalts]).
The state of Rhineland-Palatinate was established on 30 August 1946. It was formed from the northern part of the French Occupation Zone, which included parts of Bavaria (the Rhenish Palatinate), the southern parts of the Prussian Rhine Province (including the District of Birkenfeld which formerly belonged to Oldenburg), parts of the Prussian Province of Nassau (see Hesse-Nassau), and parts of Hesse-Darmstadt (Rhinehessen on the western banks of the Rhine); the constitution was legally confirmed by referendum on 18 May 1947.
Situated in western Germany, Rhineland-Palatinate borders (from the north and clockwise) North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Baden-Württemberg, France, Saarland, Luxembourg and Belgium.
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Russia
Russiai/ˈrʌʃə/ or /ˈrʊʃə/ (Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈratsɨjə] ( listen)), is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both via Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It also has maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, and the US state of Alaska by the Bering Strait. At 17,075,400 square kilometres (6,592,800 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is also the eighth most populous nation with 143 million people. It extends across the whole of northern Asia and 40% of Europe, spanning nine time zones and incorporating a wide range of environments and landforms. Russia has the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources and is the largest producer of oil and natural gas globally. Russia has the world's largest forest reserves and its lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's fresh water.
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United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK, or Britain) is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe. The country includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea.
The United Kingdom is a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system, with its seat of government in the capital city of London. It is a country in its own right and consists of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. There are three devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff, the capitals of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Associated with the UK, but not constitutionally part of it, are three Crown Dependencies. The United Kingdom has fourteen overseas territories. These are remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in 1922, encompassed almost a quarter of the world's land surface and was the largest empire in history. British influence can still be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former territories.
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United States
The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) 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 Pacific and Caribbean.
At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km2) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.
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University of Bonn
The University of Bonn (German: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, Germany. Founded in its present form in 1818, as the linear successor of earlier academic institutions, the University of Bonn is today one of the leading universities in Germany. The University of Bonn offers a large number of undergraduate and graduate programs in a range of subjects. Its library holds more than two million volumes. The University of Bonn has 525 professors and 27,800 students. Among its notable alumni and faculty are seven Nobel Laureates, two Fields Medalists, twelve Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize winners, Pope Benedict XVI, Heinrich Heine, Friedrich Nietzsche and Joseph Schumpeter. In the years 2010 and 2011, the Times Higher Education ranked the University of Bonn as one of the 200 best universities in the world.
The university's forerunner was the Kurkölnische Akademie Bonn (English: Academy of the Prince-elector of Cologne) which was founded in 1777 by Maximilian Frederick of Königsegg-Rothenfels, the prince-elector of Cologne. In the spirit of the Enlightenment the new academy was nonsectarian. The academy had schools for theology, law, pharmacy and general studies. In 1784 Emperor Joseph II granted the academy the right to award academic degrees (Licentiat and Ph.D.), turning the academy into a university. The academy was closed in 1798 after the left bank of the Rhine was occupied by France during the French Revolutionary Wars.
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Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic (Weimarer Republik [ˈvaɪmaʁɐ ʁepuˈbliːk] (
listen)) is the name given by historians to the federal republic and parliamentary representative democracy established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government. It was named after Weimar, the city where the constitutional assembly took place. Its official name was German Reich (Deutsches Reich)
Following World War I, the republic emerged from the German Revolution in November 1918. In 1919, a national assembly convened in Weimar, where a new constitution for the German Reich was written, then adopted on 11 August of that same year. The ensuing period of liberal democracy lapsed in the early 1930s, leading to the ascent of the nascent Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler in 1933. The legal measures taken by the Nazi government in February and March 1933, commonly known as Gleichschaltung ("coordination") meant that the government could legislate contrary to the constitution. The republic nominally continued to exist until 1945, as the constitution was never formally repealed. However, the measures taken by the Nazis in the early part of their rule rendered the constitution irrelevant. Thus, 1933 is usually seen as the end of the Weimar Republic and the beginning of Hitler's Third Reich.
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West Germany
West Germany (German: Westdeutschland) is the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland) in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990.
During this period, West Germany and the communist East Germany were divided by the Inner German border. After 1961, West Berlin was physically separated from East Berlin as well as from East Germany by the Berlin Wall. This situation ended when East Germany was dissolved and its five states joined the ten states of the Federal Republic of Germany along with the reunified city-state of Berlin. The enlarged Federal Republic of Germany with sixteen states (known simply as "Germany") is thus the continuation of the pre-1990 Federal Republic of Germany.
The Federal Republic of Germany was established from eleven states formed in the three Allied Zones of occupation held by the United States, the United Kingdom and France (the "Western Zones"). The city of Bonn was its provisional capital city. The fourth Allied occupation zone (the East Zone, or Ostzone) was held by the Soviet Union. The parts of this zone lying east of the Oder-Neisse were in fact annexed by the Soviet Union and communist Poland; the remaining central part around Berlin became the communist German Democratic Republic (abbreviated GDR; in German Deutsche Demokratische Republik or DDR) with its de facto capital in East Berlin. As a result, West Germany had a territory about half the size of the interwar democratic Weimar Republic.
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Adolf Köster
Adolf Köster (8 March 1883, Verden an der Aller — 18 February 1930) was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and diplomat. He served as Foreign Minister of Germany (1920) and Interior Minister of Germany (1921–1922).
Born in Verden an der Aller, he grew up in Kappeln and became a member of the SPD as a youth. He taught at the Technical University of Munich until 1912, and during the First World War, he was a war correspondent for the SPD daily Vorwärts.
Following the November Revolution in 1918, he joined the Prussian State Chancellory, and was appointed as State Secretary in the German Chancellory in May 1919. He served as Foreign Minister of Germany from 10 April to 8 June 1920 in the first cabinet of Hermann Müller that consisted of the SPD, the Catholic Centre Party and the liberal German Democratic Party (DDP).
In the second cabinet of Joseph Wirth (Centre, SPD, DDP), he served as Minister of the Interior of Germany from 26 October 1921 to 14 November 1922.
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Angela Merkel
Angela Dorothea Merkel, German: [aŋˈɡeːla doʁoˈteːa ˈmɛʁkl̩] ( listen); née Kasner (born 17 July 1954) is the Chancellor of Germany and Chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Merkel is the first female Chancellor of Germany.
A physical chemist by professional background, Merkel entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989 and briefly served as the deputy spokesperson for Lothar de Maizière's democratically elected East German government prior to the German reunification. Following reunification in 1990, she was elected to the Bundestag, where she has represented the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern since. She served as Federal Minister for Women and Youth 1991–1994 and as Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety 1994–1998 in Helmut Kohl's fourth and fifth cabinets. She was Secretary General of the CDU 1998–2000, and was elected chairperson in 2000. From 2002 to 2005, she was also chair of the CDU/CSU parliamentary coalition.
After her election as Chancellor following the 2005 federal election, she led a grand coalition consisting of her own CDU party, its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), until 2009. In the 2009 federal election, the CDU obtained the largest share of the votes, and formed a coalition government with the CSU and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP).
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Annette Schavan
Annette Schavan (help·info) (born June 10, 1955 in Jüchen) is a German politician (CDU). She has been the Federal Minister of Education and Research since November 22, 2005.
From 1995-2005, she served as the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. During this time, she oversaw school education in Baden-Württemberg, and started a controversy when she disallowed a Muslim teacher to wear a head scarf in school, since that was seen as a religious symbol, while allowing Catholic nuns to wear their traditional habit. This was done on the accepted pretext that the cassocks of nuns and monks have an official function, while a Moslem headscarf demonstrates the unwillingness to integrate with and accept the society of a country that one has chosen to live in for material reasons in preference to one's own.
Schavan was under discussion to become the Christian Democrats' candidate for Germany's presidency in 2004, but Horst Köhler was nominated and elected. In 2005 she tried to succeed Erwin Teufel as Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg, but she was defeated by her rival Günther Oettinger (also CDU) in the internal elections of the CDU.
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Anton Ackermann
Anton Ackermann (real name: Eugen Hanisch, 25 December 1905 Thalheim, Saxony - 4 May 1973 East Berlin) was an East German politician. In 1953, he briefly served as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
From 1920 to 1928, he worked as functionary of the Communist Youth Movement of Germany. In 1926 he joined the Communist Party of Germany. He studied at the Lenin School in Moscow. Back in Germany, the Communist Party was expelled after the Nazis seized power in 1933. Ackermann continued working for the illegal Communist Party.
From 1935 to 1937 he lived in Prague. During the Spanish Civil War, Ackermann was the leader of the Political School of the International Brigades. After staying a shortwhile, he went to Moscow and became editor of the German language newspaper "The Free Word".
In 1943 he became an active member of the Moscow based National Committee for a Free Germany (NKFD).
After World War II, he returned to Germany as head of the Ackermann Group, the groups sent by the Communist Party to lay the groundwork for the Soviet Military Administration in Germany in Saxony. He joined the East German Communist party, the Socialist Unity Party (SED). He was elected into the Central Committee and became a candidate member of the Politburo in 1949. From 1950 to 1954, he was a member of the People's Chamber.
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Arthur Seyss-Inquart
Arthur Seyss-Inquart (help·info) (in German: Seyß-Inquart) (22 July 1892 – 16 October 1946) was a Chancellor of Austria, lawyer and later Nazi official in pre-Anschluss Austria, the Third Reich and for wartime Germany in Poland and the Netherlands. At the Nuremberg Trials, he was found guilty of crimes against humanity and later executed.
Seyss-Inquart was born in 1892 in Stonařov (German: Stannern), Moravia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to the school principal Emíl Seyss-Inquart and his German-speaking wife Auguste Hýrenbach. The family moved to Vienna in 1907. Seyss-Inquart later went to study law at the University of Vienna. At the beginning of World War I in August 1914 Seyss-Inquart enlisted with the Austrian Army and was given a commission with the Tyrolean Kaiserjäger, subsequently serving in Russia, Romania and Italy. He was decorated for bravery on a number of occasions and while recovering from wounds in 1917 he completed his final examinations for his degree. Seyss-Inquart had five older siblings: Hedwig (born 1881), Richard (born 3 April 1883, became a Catholic priest, but left the Church and ministry, married in civil ceremony and became Oberregierungsrat and prison superior by 1940 in the Ostmark), Irene (born 1885), Henriette (born 1887) and Robert (born 1891).
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Arthur Zimmermann
Arthur Zimmermann (October 5, 1864 - June 6, 1940) was State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the German Empire from November 22, 1916, until his resignation on August 6, 1917. His name is associated with the Zimmermann Telegram during World War I. However, he was also closely involved in plans to support an Irish rebellion, an Indian rebellion, and to help the Communists undermine Tsarist Russia.
He was born in Marggrabowa, East Prussia, then in the Kingdom of Prussia (now called Olecko, Mazury, Poland), and died of pneumonia in Berlin. He studied law from 1884 to 1887 in Königsberg, East Prussia, and Leipzig. A period as a junior lawyer followed and later he received his doctorate of law. In 1893, he took up a career in diplomacy and entered the consular service in Berlin. He arrived in China in 1896 (Canton in 1898), and rose to the rank of consul in 1900. While stationed in the Far East, he witnessed the Boxer Rebellion in China.
Later he was called to the Foreign Office, became Under Secretary of State in 1911, and on November 24, 1916, he accepted his confirmation as Secretary of State, succeeding Gottlieb von Jagow in this position. Actually, he had assumed a large share of his superior's negotiations with foreign envoys for several years prior to his appointment because of von Jagow's reservedness in office. He was the first non-aristocrat to serve as foreign secretary.
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Bernhard von Bülow
Bernhard Heinrich Karl Martin von Bülow (May 3, 1849 – October 28, 1929), named in 1905 Prince (Fürst) von Bülow, was a German statesman who served as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for three years and then as Chancellor of the German Empire from 1900 to 1909.
Bülow was described as possessing every quality except greatness. He had a round face with smiling blue eyes and a carefully trimmed moustache. He spoke several languages, was a charming conversationalist and was comfortably at home in high society with a capacity to entertain and impress even his opponents. His colleague Kiderlen referred to him as "the Eel". Although highly ambitious, he was also vain and once he obtained power and position in the German government had no overaching ambition what to do with it, allowing others to guide policy. His character made him a good choice to work well with Emperor Wilhelm II, who required agreement and flattery from his senior ministers even if sometimes they then ignored his instructions. Bülow was a fine judge of mood and an expert flatterer, but could equally be cutting and contemptuous of both friends and enemies to others. He wrote four volumes of autobiography to be published after his death, which markedly altered public perception of his character as they included his candid and malicious descriptions of others. He was a fine debater in the Reichstag, although generally lazy in carrying out his duties. He was described by Friedrich von Holstein, who for 30 years was first councilor in the foreign department and a major influence on policy throughout that time, as having "read more Macchiavelli than he could digest". His mother-in-law claimed, "Bernhard makes a secret out of everything."
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Carl Bildt
Nils Daniel Carl Bildt KCMG (born 15 July 1949) is a Swedish politician and diplomat who was Prime Minister of Sweden from 1991 to 1994 and leader of the liberal conservative Moderate Party from 1986 to 1999. He has served as Sweden's Minister for Foreign Affairs since 6 October 2006.
Bildt has also been noted internationally as a mediator in the Balkan conflict, serving as the European Union's Special Envoy to the Former Yugoslavia from June 1995, co-chairman of the Dayton Peace Conference in November 1995 and as High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina from December 1995 to June 1997 immediately after the Bosnian War. From 1999 to 2001, he served as the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Balkans.
Bildt was born in Halmstad, Halland, and belongs to an old Norwegian-Danish-Swedish noble family traditionally domiciled in Bohus county. Bildt attended Stockholm University but never graduated. His great-great-grandfather, Baron Gillis Bildt, served as Prime Minister a century earlier and as a diplomat as well as Marshal of the Realm of Sweden (riksmarskalk). His great-grandfather, General Knut Bildt, was chief of the general staff. His great-grandfather's brother Carl Bildt served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as Cabinet - Secretary (Under secretary of state of foreign affairs, in Swedish kabinettssekreterare) and was a renowned diplomat and member of the Swedish Academy. Bildt's grandfather Nils Bildt was a colonel and chief of the Halland Regiment. Colonel Bildt and his family were neighbours to the Palme family. Bildt's father Daniel Bildt (1920–2010) was a former major in the reserves of the now defunct Halland Regiment (Hallands regemente) and a former bureau director in the now defunct Civil Defense Board's Education Bureau. He married Kerstin Andersson-Alwå in 1947.
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Catherine Ashton
Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, PC (born 20 March 1956) is a British Labour politician who in 2009 became the European Union's High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. Under the Treaty of Lisbon this post is combined with the post of Vice-President of the European Commission.
Her political career began in 1999 when she was created a Life Peer (Baroness Ashton of Upholland) by the Labour Government under which she took on a ministerial position (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State) in the Department for Education and Skills in 2001, and subsequently in the Department for Constitutional Affairs and Ministry of Justice. She became a Privy Councillor PC in May 2006.
Catherine Ashton was appointed Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Queen's Privy Council in Gordon Brown’s first Cabinet in June 2007. As well as Leader of the Lords, she held responsibility in the House of Lords for equalities issues, and she was instrumental in steering the EU's Treaty of Lisbon through the UK's upper chamber. In 2008, she succeeded Peter Mandelson as Commissioner for Trade in the European Commission.
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Clemens Busch
Clemens August Busch (10 May 1834 – 25 November 1895) was a German diplomat.
Busch was born in Cologne. He served as acting head of the Foreign Office from 25 June to 16 July 1881, succeeding Count Friedrich of Limburg Stirum, until he was replaced by Paul von Hatzfeld zu Trachenberg, until then the Ambassador to Constantinople.
He died in Berne.
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Cornelia Pieper
Cornelia Pieper (born February 4, 1959 in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, née Richter) is a German politician of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), currently serving as Minister of State at the Foreign Office under Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle in the Second Cabinet Merkel (since 28 October 2009). She was secretary general of her party from 2001 to 2005. Since 2005, she has been deputy chairwoman of the FDP.
Pieper was born in Halle in the former German Democratic Republic. After her Abitur she studied Polish and Russian in Leipzig and Warsaw. She finished in 1982 with a Diplom. Since 1996 she has worked as a freelance translator.
From 1987 to 1990 Pieper was engaged at the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany. In 1990 she joined the FDP and since that time she has been a member of the party's executive board in the State of Saxony-Anhalt. In 1995 she became chairwoman of the FDP in Saxony-Anhalt, what she still is today. She has also been a member of the federal executive board since 1993. From 1997 to 2001 she was deputy chairwoman of the federal FDP, from 2001 to 2005 she was secretary general. In May 2005 Pieper once again was elected deputy chairwoman of the FDP.
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Daniel Bahr
Daniel Bahr (born 4 November 1976) is a German politician and member of the FDP.
Bahr was born in Lahnstein. He is the FDP's expert on health politics and was chairman of the party's youth organization, the Young Liberals, from 1999 to 2004.
Bahr joined the Young Liberals (the German short form is "Julis") at the age of 14 in 1990. Two years later he became a member of their mother party FDP. From 1994 to 1996 he was chairman of the Julis in the district of Münster and subsequently became a member of its federal executive board. In 1999, he was elected chairman of the Julis.
Since 1998, Bahr has been a member of the FDP's federal executive board. In 2003, he became chairman of the party's "Zukunftsforum" (Future Forum) on "Frauen, kinderfreundliches Deutschland, Generationengerechtigkeit" ("Women, Child-friendly Germany, a Generation Fairness"). He is currently the chairman of the FDP in the Münsterland district, and leads the party's opposition against the grand coalition's health sector reform. Since 2009 he was Parliamentary State Secretary by the Federal Minister of Health, since 12 May 2011 he is Federal Minister of Health.
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Erich Mende
Dr. Erich Mende (October 28, 1916 in Groß Strehlitz – May 6, 1998 in Bonn) was a German politician of the FDP and CDU. He was the leader of FDP 1960 - 1968.
Mende was born in Gross-Strehlitz, Upper Silesia, (today Poland). His father, Maximilian Mende, was the director of a secondary school and, as was usual among Catholics, a supporter of the Centre Party.
On graduating from grammar school in 1936 he decided to become a professional soldier and enlisted in the Wehrmacht's 84th Infantry Regiment at Gleiwitz, on the German-Polish frontier.
As a lieutenant of infantry he was badly wounded on the third day of the German invasion of Poland in 1939. He was wounded on two further occasions. In January 1945 as a major, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes) for holding the front and thereby helping 10,000 East Prussian civilians and wounded escape the advancing Red Army. A little later he managed to get the survivors of the Silesian 102. Infanterie-Division (102nd Infantry Division), about 4,000 men, to the relative safety of being prisoners of war of the British.
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Ernst Moritz Arndt
Ernst Moritz Arndt (26 December 1769 – 29 January 1860) was a German nationalistic and antisemitic author and poet. Early in his life, he fought for the abolition of serfdom, later against Napoleonic dominance over Germany, and had to flee to Sweden for some time due to his anti-French positions. He is one of the main founders of German nationalism and the movement for German unification. After the Carlsbad Decrees, the forces of the restoration counted him as a demagogue and he was only rehabilitated[citation needed] in 1840.
Arndt played an important role for the early national and liberal Burschenschaft movement and for the unification movement, and his song "Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?" acted as an unofficial German national anthem.
Long after his death, his anti-French war propaganda was used again by nationalists in both World Wars and also by the National Front of the GDR 1949-1989. This together with some strongly antisemitic statements has led to a rather ambivalent view of Arndt today.
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Franz Blücher
Franz Blücher (24 March 1896 – 26 March 1959) was a German politician and member of the German Parliament (Bundestag).
Blücher was born in Essen, Rhine Province, German Empire.
After World War II, Blücher was one of the founders of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and served as chairman in the British occupation zone (1946-1949) and as Federal Chairman (1949-1954).
From 1949 to 1957, he was a member of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's cabinet. As representative of the second-largest government party, he occupied the position of Vice-Chancellor of Germany and also held the Ministry for Matters of the Marshall Plan, which in 1953 was renamed Ministry for Economic Cooperation.
In 1956, he - along with other fifteen ministers and parliamentarians - sided with Chancellor Adenauer against his party and formed the Free People's Party (FVP), which early in 1957 merged with the German Party (DP).
Franz Blücher died on 26 March 1959 in Bad Godesberg, North Rhine-Westphalia.
Blücher was awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Berlin (1954) and the University of the Punjab in Lahore (1957). In 1954 he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit and the Grand Cross of the Greek Order of George I. In 1955, he received the Grand Cross of Merit of the Italian Republic.
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Franz Josef Jung
Franz Josef Jung (born 5 March 1949) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He became Federal Minister of Defence in the Grand coalition cabinet of Angela Merkel on 22 November 2005. In October 2009 he became Minister of Labour and Social Affairs but resigned a month later.
After his military service, Franz Josef Jung studied law at the University of Mainz and is a lawyer and civil law notary. In 1978 Jung successfully completed his doctoral studies at the University of Mainz and was hence awarded the title Dr. jur. (i.e. PhD in Law). In his political career, he held various party functions in Hesse (currently as vice chairman of the CDU there) and also served as a state minister.
In September 2007 he sparked a debate by his controversial assertion to shoot down jetliners in the case of a terrorist attack on Germany. Several politicians of the opposition parties as well as politicians from the SPD, especially Reinhard Bütikofer and Kurt Beck, described his move as "unconstitutional" and called for his resignation.
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Friedrich Rosen
Friedrich Rosen or Fritz Rosen (Leipzig, August 30, 1856 – November 27, 1935, Beijing) was a German Orientalist, diplomat and politician. From May to October 1921 he was the Foreign Minister of Germany.
Friedrich Rosen's grandfather, Friedrich Ballhorn-Rosen, was Chancellor of the Principality of Lippe; his father, Georg Rosen, an orientalist, published writings on Islam. However, Georg Rosen decided to enter the diplomatic service of Prussia. He was active as a consul in the Middle East and the Balkans. Friedrich's mother came from a British scholarly family of Jewish faith (who had converted to Christianity).
In this cosmopolitan atmosphere, Friedrich Rosen was born in 1856 in Leipzig. However, he grew up in Jerusalem, where his father was consul. Friedrich Rosen enjoyed an education in four languages (German, English, Arabic and Turkish). He early decided to study modern and oriental languages, which brought him to Berlin, Leipzig, Göttingen, and Paris. After graduating, he worked for several months in London as a tutor for the children of Frederick Temple Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, the viceroy of India.
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Georg Dertinger
Georg Dertinger (25 December 1902 - 21 January 1968) was a German politician from the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).
He was born in Berlin into a middle-class Protestant family. Dertinger briefly studied law and economics. After his study he became a journalist and later editor for the Magdeburger Volkszeitung and the nationalistic newspaper Stahlhelm. He broke with the Stahlhelm because of its rigid right-wing philosophy. He sympathized with the German National People's Party, a right-wing nationalist party.
Dertinger later became a member of the political circle around Chancellor Franz von Papen. He accompanied Papen to Rome as a journalist, a representative for the Hamburger Nachrichten, for the signature of the Concordat between Germany and the Holy See, shortly after Hitler became Chancellor.
In 1934 Dertinger returned to Berlin and became publisher of Dienst aus Deutschland, a news agency that provided news to foreign newspapers.
After World War II Dertinger co-founded the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the SBZ (Soviet Occupied Zone) of Germany. From 1946 to 1949 he was General Secretary of the East-German CDU and from 1949 to 1953 Vice-Chairman of the party. He supported the official line of co-operation with the Socialist Unity Party and opposed the more independent-minded party chairman Jakob Kaiser, whom he had deposed in December, 1947.
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Gerhard Schröder
Gerhard Fritz Kurt Schröder (commonly rendered Schroeder)([ˈɡɛɐ̯haɐ̯t fʁɪts kʊʁt ˈʃʁøːdɐ] ( listen); born 7 April 1944) is a German politician, and was Chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), he led a coalition government of the SPD and the Greens. Before becoming a full-time politician, he was a lawyer, and before becoming Chancellor he served as Premier of Lower Saxony (1990–1998). Following the 2005 federal election, which his party lost, after three weeks of negotiations he stood down as Chancellor in favour of Angela Merkel of the rival Christian Democratic Union. He is currently the chairman of the board of Nord Stream AG, after having been hired as a global manager by investment bank Rothschild.
Schröder was born in Mossenberg, today an outlying centre of Blomberg, in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia. His father, Fritz Schröder, a lance corporal in the Wehrmacht, was killed in action in World War II in Romania on 4 October 1944, a few months after Gerhard's birth. His mother Erika worked as an agricultural laborer so that she could support herself and her two sons.
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Gottlieb von Jagow
Gottlieb von Jagow (22 June 1863, Berlin – 1 January 1935) was a German diplomat. He served as the foreign minister of Germany between January 1913 and 1916.
In the July crisis of 1914, Jagow was confident that an Austro-Serbian war would be localized, and that Russia was not yet prepared for a continental war. This belief was incorrect, which indirectly led to the outbreak of World War I. After the war, Jagow attributed deeper reasons for the outbreak of war to "...this damned system of alliances."
According to Friedrich Katz, Gottlieb von Jagow was the principal supporter of a failed plan designed to confront The United States and Mexico in a war. At the time the Mexican Revolution had created rising tensions between both countries. As a result Jagow expected that the United States would not enter World War I due to its military involvement with Mexico.
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Guido Westerwelle
Guido Westerwelle (German pronunciation: [ˈɡiːdo ˈvɛstɐˌvɛlə]; born December 27, 1961) is a German liberal politician, who, since 28 October 2009, has been serving as the Foreign Minister in the second cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel, and who was Vice Chancellor of Germany from 2009 to 2011. He is the first openly gay person to hold either of those positions. He has been the chairman of the Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP) since May 2001, but stepped down in 2011. A lawyer by profession, he has been a member of the Bundestag since 1996.
Guido Westerwelle was born in Bad Honnef in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. He graduated from Ernst Moritz Arndt Gymnasium in 1980 after academic struggles resulted in his departure from previous institutions where he was considered an average student at best, but substandard otherwise. He studied law at the University of Bonn from 1980 to 1987. Following the First and Second State Law Examinations in 1987 and 1991 respectively, he began practicing as an attorney in Bonn in 1991. In 1994, he earned a doctoral degree in law from FernUniversität Hagen.
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Gustav Stresemann
Gustav Stresemann (help·info) (May 10, 1878 – October 3, 1929) was a German politician and statesman who served as Chancellor in 1923 and Foreign Minister 1923–1929, during the Weimar Republic. He was co-laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926.
Stresemann's politics defy easy categorization. Arguably, his most notable achievement was reconciliation between Germany and France, for which he and Aristide Briand received the Peace Prize. During a period of political instability and fragile, short-lived governments, he was generally seen as the most influential cabinet member in most of the Weimar Republic's existence.
During his political career, he represented three successive liberal parties; he was the dominant figure of the German People's Party during the Weimar Republic.
Stresemann was born on May 10, 1878 in the Köpenicker Straße area of southeast Berlin, the youngest of seven children. His father worked as a beer bottler and distributor, and also ran a small bar out of the family home, as well as renting rooms for extra money. The family was lower middle class, but relatively well-off for the neighbourhood, and had sufficient funds to provide Gustav with a high-quality education. Stresemann was an excellent student, particularly excelling in German literature and poetry. In an essay written when he left school, he noted that he would have enjoyed becoming a teacher, but he would only have been qualified to teach languages or the natural sciences, which were not his primary areas of interest. Thus, he entered the University of Berlin in 1897 to study political economy. Through this course of studies, Stresemann was exposed to the principal ideological arguments of his day, particularly the German debate about socialism.
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Hans-Peter Friedrich
Hans-Peter Friedrich (born March 10, 1957 in Naila, Bavaria) is a German politician, representative of the Christian Social Union (CSU). He has been a member of the Bundestag of Germany since 1998. In the ongoing coalition negotiations with the Free Democratic Party, Friedrich was responsible for the portfolio of housing and development. On 2 March 2011 he was selected to succeed Thomas de Maizière as Federal Minister of the Interior. On 3 March 2011 Friedrich was appointed.
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Heinrich Brüning
Heinrich Brüning ( listen (help·info)) (26 November 1885 – 30 March 1970) was Chancellor of Germany from 1930 to 1932, during the Weimar Republic. He was the longest serving Chancellor of the Weimar Republic.
Soon after Brüning took power, he was confronted by an economic crisis caused by the Great Depression. Brüning responded with a tightening of credit and a rollback of all wage and salary increases. These policies made him very unpopular and lost him the support of the Reichstag. During much of Brüning's tenure, he based his administration on presidential emergency decree ("Notverordnung"). He coined the term "authoritative (or authoritarian) democracy" to describe this form of government based on the cooperation of the president and toleration of the parliament.
Brüning remains a controversial figure in German politics. His intentions were to protect the Republican government, but his policies contributed to the gradual demise of the Weimar Republic.
Born in Münster in Westphalia, Brüning lost his father when he was one year old and thus his elder brother Hermann Joseph played a major part in his upbringing. Although brought up as a devout Catholic, Brüning was also influenced by Lutheranism's concept of duty, since the Münster region was home to both Catholics, who formed a majority (especially in the western part) and some Prussian-influenced Protestants.
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Herbert von Bismarck
Herbert, Prince of Bismarck (né Nicolaus Heinrich Ferdinand Herbert von Bismarck) (28 December 1849 – 18 September 1904) was a German politician, who served as Foreign Secretary from 1886 to 1890. His political career was closely tied to that of his father, Otto von Bismarck, and he left office a few days after his father's dismissal. He succeeded his father as the 2nd Prince of Bismarck in 1898.
Herbert von Bismarck born in Berlin, the oldest son of Otto von Bismarck and his wife Johanna, née von Puttkamer. He had an older sister, Marie (b. 1847), and a younger brother, Wilhelm (b. 1852). He fought in the Franco-Prussian War, sustaining a bullet wound through the left leg during a cavalry charge at the Battle of Mars-La-Tour. He joined the diplomatic service in 1874, on his father's wishes. He became Under-Secretary and acting head of the Foreign Office in 1885, and the following year he was appointed the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. He additionally was appointed Minister of State of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1888. He once said that 'My father is the only person who can handle this business.' He wanted to marry Princess Elisabeth von Carolath-Beuthen in 1881, but his father would not allow it, as she was a Catholic divorcee and she was ten years older than Herbert. The Chancellor pressured his son with tears, blackmail and threats to disinherit him by getting Kaiser Wilhelm I to change the primogeniture statutes. This experience left Herbert a very bitter and alcoholic man. He once shot five bullets through a Foreign Office window to be told he may have hit someone. He replied 'Officials have to be kept in a permanent state of irritation and alarm; the moment that ceases they stop working.' On 21 June 1892 in Vienna he married Countess Marguerite Hoyos, a member of the originally Spanish magnate family of Hoyos from Hungary, and the granddaughter of Robert Whitehead, the inventor of the torpedo. They had five children:
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Hermann von Thile
Karl Hermann von Thile (born December 19, 1812 in Berlin, died December 26, 1889 in Berlin) was a German diplomat, and the first Foreign Secretary of Germany and head of the Foreign Office (21 March, 1871-30 September 1872).
He became a diplomat in the Kingdom of Prussia in 1837, and was sent to Rome, Berne, Vienna and London, before he was appointed as the Envoy to Rome in 1854, succeeding Christian Karl Josias von Bunsen. In 1862 he became Under-Secretary of State in the Prussian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
As Secretary of State, he wielded less power over the direction of the foreign policy than Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.
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Ilse Aigner
Ilse Aigner (born 7 December 1964) is a German politician and member of the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU).
Aigner was born in Feldkirchen-Westerham, Rosenheim, Bavaria and entered Angela Merkel's grand coalition cabinet as Federal Minister of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection on 31 October 2008. She succeeded Horst Seehofer who had become minister president of Bavaria.
Aigner completed a professional training as a telecommunications technician in 1985 and joined the electrical installation business of her parents. In 1990 she graduated from the technical academy with the degree of a State Certified Engineer and worked for several years for Eurocopter in the development of helicopter electric systems.
Aigner was elected first in 1994 to the Bavarian State Parliament. Since 1998 she is a member of the German Bundestag, winning always an absolute majority of the votes in her electoral district. Aigner has been outspoken in her criticisms of Facebook. She feels that Facebook needs to do more with its settings to protect its users' privacy.
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Joschka Fischer
Joseph Martin "Joschka" Fischer (born April 12, 1948) is a German politician of the Alliance '90/The Greens. He served as Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor of Germany in the cabinet of Gerhard Schröder from 1998 to 2005. Fischer has been a leading figure in the West German Greens since the 1970s, and according to opinion polls, he was the most popular politician in Germany for most of the government's duration. Following the September 2005 election, in which the Schröder government was defeated, he left office on November 22, 2005.
Fischer was born in Gerabronn in Baden-Württemberg, the third child of a butcher, whose family had lived in Budakeszi, Hungary, for several generations. Fischer's family had to leave Hungary in 1946 after it was occupied by the Soviet Union, and ethnic Germans were persecuted and expelled by the Hungarian authorities. His nickname Joschka is derived from the Hungarian Jóska, diminutive of Joseph (Hungarian József). Fischer dropped out of high school in 1965, and started an apprenticeship as a photographer, which he quit in 1966. Because Fischer never gained a school-leaving certificate, he never attended a university or a college. He neither did compulsory military service nor the alternative civilian service for conscientious objectors, because his poor eyesight caused him to fail his physical examinations.
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Joseph Wirth
Karl Joseph Wirth, known as Joseph Wirth, (6 September 1879 Freiburg im Breisgau – 3 January 1956 Freiburg im Breisgau) was a German politician of the Catholic Centre Party who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1921 to 1922.
The son of a working engineer, he was educated at the University of Freiburg. In 1908 he was appointed to the chair of Economics at the Technical College of Freiburg, and after his election as a municipal councillor in 1911 he devoted himself to financial questions. In 1913 he obtained a seat as a member of the Catholic Centre Party in the diet of Baden, and in 1918 was appointed Minister of Finance. In January 1919 he was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly which sat at Weimar.
In March 1920, when the ministry was reconstructed after the Kapp Putsch, he received the portfolio of finance, which he continued to hold in subsequent ministries. His task was to carry out the system of increased national taxation which his predecessor Matthias Erzberger had induced the Reichstag to adopt. When in May 1921 the Allied ultimatum on reparation was presented to Germany and the sanctions enforced on the Rhine, the Fehrenbach-Simons ministry, which had rejected the London terms, resigned, and Wirth was called upon to form a new cabinet. He succeeded in obtaining the cooperation of a number of able Democrats, Catholics and Socialists, including the prominent industrialist and economist Walther Rathenau as Minister of Reconstructions. Wirth himself retained the portfolio of finance. The new ministry then accepted the Allies' reparation terms — 132 billion marks (£6,600,000,000) payable in yearly instalments of £100,000,000 plus the proceeds of a 25% duty on German exports. By August 31, 1921, Germany had paid the first half-yearly instalment of £50,000,000, and in the following October Rathenau succeeded in concluding a comprehensive agreement with France for paying reparations in kind for the reconstruction of the devastated regions.
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Julius Curtius
Julius Curtius (7 February 1877, Duisburg – 10 November 1948, Heidelberg) was Foreign Minister of Germany from October, 1929 to October 1931. Curtius was a member of the national-liberal German People's Party and worked closely with Heinrich Brüning to revise the Treaty of Versailles in Germany's favor. However, Curtius was not a member of Brüning's inner circle. His notable achievement as Foreign Minister was in negotiating a customs union with Austria in March 1931, but opposition from France scuttled the proposed union. To halt the union, the French withdrew a number of short loans they had made to Austria; the withdrawal of the French loans helped to cause the collapse of Austria's largest bank in May, 1931, which in its turn set a series of banking collapses all over Central Europe in the summer of 1931. Curtius was intimately involved in the negotiations that led to the issuing of the Hoover Moratorium by the U.S President Herbert Hoover that halted war reparations payments by Germany in June 1931 as part of the effort to limit the financial fall-out of the banking collapse.
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Jürgen Möllemann
Jürgen Wilhelm Möllemann (15 July 1945 – 5 June 2003) was a German politician of the Free Democratic Party. He served as Minister of State at the Foreign Office (1982–1987), as Federal Minister of Education and Research (1987–1991), as Federal Minister of Economics (1991–1993) and as Vice Chancellor of Germany (1992–1993) in the government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
Born in Augsburg, he took his Abitur in 1965, served his military service as a paratrooper in the Bundeswehr, and subsequently studied to become a teacher of German, sports and history at the Pädagogische Hochschule (teachers' college) in Münster from 1966 to 1969.
Möllemann was initially a member of the CDU from 1962 to 1969, but later on became a member of the liberal FDP in 1970. He was a member of the Bundestag from 1972 to 2000 and again from 2002 to 2003. Möllemann was President of the FDP in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) from 1983 to 1994 and again from 1996 to 2002, and also was the chairman of the FDP fraction in the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia from June 2000 to October 2002.
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Klaus Kinkel
Klaus Kinkel (born 17 December 1936) is a German civil servant, lawyer, and politician of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP). He served as Federal Minister of Justice (1991–1992), Foreign Minister (1992–1998) and Vice Chancellor of Germany (1993–1998) in the government of Helmut Kohl. He was also chairman of the liberal Free Democratic Party from 1993 to 1995. Previously, he was President of the Federal Intelligence Service (1979–1982).
As Foreign Minister, Kinkel took a clear stance to end the atrocities committed during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, and proposed the creation of the ICTY.
The son of a doctor, he was born in Metzingen, Baden-Württemberg, into a Catholic family. He took his Abitur at the Staatliches Gymnasium Hechingen and studied law at the universities of Tübingen, Bonn and Cologne. He became a member of A.V. Guestfalia Tübingen, a Catholic student fraternity that is member of the Cartellverband. Kinkel took his first juristic state exam at Tübingen, the second in Stuttgart and earned a doctorate of law in 1964.
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Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (German pronunciation: [ˈkɔnʁaːt ˈhɛɐman ˈjoːzɛf ˈaːdənaʊɐ]; 5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a German statesman. As Chancellor of Germany (West Germany) from 1949 to 1963, he led his country from the ruins of World War II to a powerful and prosperous nation that forged close relations with old enemies France and the United States. In his years in power Germany achieved prosperity, democracy, stability and respect. He was the first chancellor (head of government) of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, called West Germany), 1949–63. He was the first leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a coalition of Catholics and Protestants that under his leadership became and has since remained the most dominant in Germany.
Adenauer, dubbed "Der Alte" ("the old one"), belied his age as the oldest elected leader in world history by his intense work habits and his uncanny political instinct. He displayed a strong dedication to a broad vision of democracy, capitalism, and anti-Communism. A shrewd politician, Adenauer was deeply committed to a Western-oriented foreign policy and restoring the position of West Germany on the world stage. He worked to restore the West German economy from the destruction in World War II to a central position in Europe, rebuilt its army and came to terms with France, helped make possible Western European unification, opposed rival East Germany, and made his nation a member of NATO and a firm ally of the United States.
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Kristina Schröder
Kristina Schröder (born Köhler, 3 August 1977) is a German politician. She is currently serving as the Federal Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (since 30 November 2009). She has served as a Member of Parliament since 2002.
Schröder was born in Wiesbaden, Hesse. After finishing her abitur in 1997, she studied sociology, history, philosophy, and political science at Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. She earned her Diplom in 2002, and her Ph.D. in 2009. Her doctoral thesis was Gerechtigkeit als Gleichheit? Eine empirische Analyse der objektiven und subjektiven Responsivität von Bundestagsabgeordneten, supervised by Jürgen W. Falter. Following her appointment as government minister, her doctoral research came under close scrutiny for its heavy reliance on research assistance by her party. In 2011 it was reported that an assistant of Falter had been paid by Schröder for working on the statistical data on which the thesis was based. The university's president stated there was no evidence for any wrongdoing, and that legwork undertaken by aides was scientifically legitimate and accepted practise.
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Laurent Fabius
Laurent Fabius (French pronunciation: [loʁɑ̃ fabjys]; born 20 August 1946) is a French Socialist politician. He served as Prime Minister from 17 July 1984 to 20 March 1986. He was 37 years old when he was appointed and is, so far, the youngest Prime Minister of the Fifth Republic. He is now Foreign Minister since 16 May 2012.
Fabius was born in Paris, the son of Louise (née Strasburger-Mortimer; 1911–2010) and André Fabius (1908–1984). His parents were Jewish and converted to Catholicism, and Fabius was raised an assimilated Catholic. His secondary education was at the Lycée Janson de Sailly and Lycée Louis-le-Grand. He was a graduate of institutions that are training grounds for academics (École Normale Supérieure), senior civil servants (École Nationale d'Administration) and future leaders (Sciences Po).
After his studies, he became an auditor for the Council of State. Member of the Socialist Party (PS) since 1974, he was first elected to the National Assembly in 1978 for the fourth constituency of Seine Maritime département. He quickly gained entry to the circle of François Mitterrand, the leader of the party.
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Lothar Bolz
Lothar Bolz (3 September 1903 – 29 December 1986) was an East German politician. From 1953 to 1965 he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of East Germany (GDR).
Lothar Bolz was born in Gleiwitz. From 1921 to 1925 he studied law, art history and literature history at the University of Munich. After his study he worked as a lawyer and in 1930 he joined the Communist Party of Germany.
After the Nazis seized power in 1933 he was forced to quit as a lawyer: Bolz went to Moscow, finding work as a teacher at the Marx-Engels Institute. From 1941 to 1945 he was headteacher of the so-called Antifascist School, where German POWs were taught to become antifascists.
In 1947 he returned to Germany and joined the East German Socialist Unity Party, but in 1948 he founded the Communist sponsored National Democratic Party of Germany (NDPD). Many members of the NDPD were former Nazis and former Wehrmacht officers. From 1948 to 1972 he was the chairman of the NDPD.
In 1949 he became a member of the People's Chamber (Parliament) and from 1949 to 1953 he was Minister of Reconstruction. From 1950 to 1967 he was one of the Deputy Prime Ministers of the GDR.
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Lothar de Maizière
Lothar de Maizière (German pronunciation: [də mɛˈzi̯ɛːɐ̯]; born 2 March 1940) is a German Christian Democratic politician. In 1990, he served as the only democratically elected Prime Minister of the German Democratic Republic, and as such was the last leader of an independent East Germany.
De Maizière was born in Nordhausen, Thuringia, and studied viola at the Hanns Eisler College of Music in East Berlin from 1959 to 1965. He played in the Berlin Symphony Orchestra before going on to study law (by distance learning, through the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin from 1969 to 1975.
In March, 1990, in the only free election held in East Germany, Lothar de Maizière was elected to the Volkskammer as a member of the East German Christian Democratic Union. One month later, he succeeded Hans Modrow as Premier and held this position from April 12th until October 2, 1990; on October 3rd, the East German state was reunified with the Federal Republic of Germany (from 1949 to 1990, West Germany). As premier, De Maizière signed the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (the so-called "2+4 treaty"), which ended the four wartime allied powers' rights and responsibilities in Berlin and Germany, and which preceded German reunification. The treaty provided that it would be signed by the four allies and the two Germanies but ratified only by newly reunified Germany and the allies.
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Markus Meckel
Markus Meckel (b. August 18, 1952) is a German theologian and politician. He was the penultimate foreign minister of the GDR and is a member of the German Bundestag.
Markus Meckel was born on August 18, 1952 in Müncheberg, Brandenburg. He had to leave high school in 1969 for political reasons. From 1969 to 1971, he studied at Kirchenoberseminar Hermannswerder, a boarding school operated by the church whose diploma allowed its students to study theology or sacred music only. From 1971 to 1978, Meckel studied theology in Naumburg and Berlin.
Meckel had already been involved with domestic opposition to the East German Communist regime since the 1970s. In October 1989, he initiated the establishment of the Social Democratic Party in the GDR (SDP) together with Martin Gutzeit. From 23 February 1990 up to the merger with the West German SPD on 27 September 1990, he was deputy SDP party chairman. After the resignation of Ibrahim Böhme, he was acting chairman from 26 March to 10 June 1990.
In the GDR's first free elections in March 1990, Meckel was elected to Parliament. On 12 April 1990, he became the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the government of Prime Minister Lothar de Maizière (CDU). In his term of office, he frequently worked with Hans Dietrich Genscher, as he was one of the representatives of the two German states during the Two Plus Four Negotiations with the victors of the Second World War over a Final Peace Treaty. It was this treaty which paved the way to the reunification of Germany.
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Martin Bangemann
Martin Bangemann (born (1934-11-15) 15 November 1934 (age 77) in Wanzleben) is a German politician and a former leader of the FDP (1985–1988). He studied Law in Tübingen and Munich, earned a Dr. jur. (equivalent to J.S.D.) in 1962, and qualified as an attorney in 1964. He is married and has five children.
Bangemann was a member of the European Parliament from 1973 to 1984, from 1976 to 1979 he was vice-chairman, from 1979 to 1984 chairman of the Liberal and Democratic Group. Moreover, he was vice-chair of the Committee on Budgets from 1978 to 1979.
Bangemann was the German Federal Minister of Economics from 1984 to 1988.
In 1989, Bangemann joined the European Commission. He was Commissioner for the internal market and industrial affairs in the Delors Commission from 1989 to 1995. He was then Commissioner for Industrial affairs, Information & Telecommunications Technologies in the Santer Commission from 1995 to 1999.
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Michael Mronz
Michael Mronz (Born March 1, 1967 in Cologne) is a German sports manager and longtime partner of German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle. The couple entered civil partnership on 17 September 2010 in a private ceremony in Bonn. He is the younger brother of the former tennis player Alexander Mronz.
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Norbert Röttgen
Norbert Röttgen (born 2 July 1965) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany. He was Federal Minister for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety from 2009 to 2012.
Röttgen graduated from the Gymnasium of Rheinbach. After completing his Abitur, he started to study law at the University of Bonn in 1984. He passed his first law examination in 1989, his second examination in 1993 and practised as a lawyer in Cologne. He obtained a legal doctorate from the University of Bonn in 2001.
Röttgen joined the CDU in 1982 while he was still a highschool student. From 1992 until 1996, he served as the chair of the Junge Union, the youth organisation of CDU in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. He was elected to the Bundestag in 1994. From 2002 until 2005 he served as the legal policy spokesman of the Parliamentary group of CDU/CSU.
During the First Cabinet of the Grand Coalition of Angela Merkel in 2005, he served as the Chief Parliamentary Secretary of the CDU/CSU Parliamentary group in the Bundestag until 2009.
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Otto Winzer
Otto Winzer (3 April 1902 - 3 March 1975) was an East German diplomat. He returned from exile in the Soviet Union as part of the Ulbricht Group, charged with setting up the Soviet Military Administration in Germany after World War II. He served as the foreign minister of East Germany between 1965 and 1975.
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Paul von Hintze
Paul von Hintze (13 February 1864 in Schwedt/Oder - 19 August 1941 in Meran) was a German naval officer and diplomatist, who served as Foreign Minister of Germany in the last stages of World War I, from July to October 1918.
Beginning his career in the Imperial Navy, Hintze retired in 1911 as a Rear Admiral and entered the diplomatic service, serving as Germany's representative in Mexico (1911–1914), China (1914–1915), and Norway (1915–1918). Despite his lack of any political experience, Hintze was appointed as Foreign Minister on 9 July 1918 following the resignation of his predecessor, Richard von Kühlmann, who had fallen afoul of the military High Command, led by Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and General Erich Ludendorff, who effectively governed the country.
During his time in the foreign ministry, Hintze pushed the Kaiser towards liberalization of the government and was involved in the discussions which led to the decision to seek an armistice at the end of September. After the resignation of the government of Chancellor Georg von Hertling on October 3, Hintze was replaced as Foreign Minister by Wilhelm Solf.
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Peter Altmaier
Peter Altmaier (born 18 June 1958 in Ensdorf, Saarland) is a German politician. He has been a member of the CDU since 1976. A jurist by profession, he worked for the European Commission from 1990 to 1994. He has been a member of the Bundestag since 1994. Since 2005, he has been a secretary of state in the Federal Ministry of the Interior (Germany). From 2006 to 2011 Altmaier was president of Europa-Union Deutschland, the German section of the Union of European Federalists. Altmaier replaced Norbert Röttgen as Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety on 22 May 2012.
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Peter Ramsauer
Peter Ramsauer (born 10 February 1954) is a German politician. He is qualified as a professional miller in accordance with the traditional occupation of his ancestry while holding the degree of PhD in Management, is married and has four daughters. On 28 October 2009, he was appointed Federal Minister of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs in the second cabinet of Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Ramsauer's wife Susanne is a cousin of American actress Sandra Bullock.
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Rainer Brüderle
Rainer Brüderle (born 22 June 1945 in Berlin)[citation needed] is a German politician and member of the FDP. He served as Minister of Economics and Transport of Rhineland-Palatinate from 1987–1998. On 28 October 2009, he was appointed Federal Minister for Economics and Technology in the Cabinet Merkel II. On 12 May 2011, Brüderle left Federal Minister for Economics and Technology. Since 10 May 2011, he is chairman of a parliamentary group of his party.
M.P. Rainer Brüderle holds a Diplom in economics from the University of Mainz.[citation needed] He has been a member of the German Bundestag since the 1998 election.
On the 14 September 2011, Rainer Brüderle announced that the article of the Vice Chancellor Philipp Rösler, about the possible benefits of a Greek bankruptcy for the rest of the countries of the Eurozone, in the newspaper Die Welt, confirms the opinion of a large number of European Ministers of Finances.[citation needed]
Brüderle is a member of the board of German television network ZDF.
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Reinhold Maier
Reinhold Maier (16 October 1889 – 19 August 1971) was a German politician and the leader of the FDP from 1957–1960.
Maier was born in Schorndorf. In the Weimar Republic Maier was a member of the German Democratic Party (DDP). In 1945 he was a founder of the Democratic People's Party (DVP), which is now the Baden-Württemberg-Organisation of the FDP.
From 1946 to 1952 he was Prime Minister of Württemberg-Baden and then Prime Minister of the new state of Baden-Württemberg until 1953.
He served as President of the Bundesrat in 1952/53. He died in Stuttgart.
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Richard von Kühlmann
Richard von Kühlmann (May 3, 1873-February 16, 1948) was a German diplomat and industrialist. From 6 August 1917 to 9 July 1918, he served as Germany's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
Kühlmann was born in Constantinople. From 1908 to 1914, he was councillor of the German embassy in London, and was very active in the study of all phases of contemporary political and social life in Great Britain and even in Ireland. During World War I, he was successively councillor of embassy at Constantinople, minister at The Hague and, from September 1916 until August 1917, ambassador at Constantinople.
Appointed foreign secretary in August 1917, he led the delegation that negotiated the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which removed the Russian Empire from World War I. He also negotiated the Peace of Bucharest of May 7, 1918, with Romania. In the treaty negotiations, Kühlmann encountered opposition from the higher command of the army, and, in particular, of Erich Ludendorff, who desired fuller territorial guarantees on Germany's eastern frontier, the establishment of a German protectorate over the Baltic States and stronger precautions against the spread of Bolshevism.
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Ronald Pofalla
Ronald Pofalla (born May 15, 1959 in Weeze) is a German politician, currently serving as the Chief of Staff of the German Chancellery and a Federal Minister for Special Affairs in the Second Cabinet Merkel.
From 2004 to 2005 he was deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU's parliamentary group in the Bundestag, and served as the Secretary General of the CDU from 2005 to 2009, when he was appointed to cabinet, succeeding Thomas de Maizière as Chief of Staff.
Pofalla studied social pedagogy at the Fachhochschule in Kleve. After finishing with a Diplom in 1981 he studied law at the University of Cologne. In 1991 he passed the second Staatsexamen. Since that time Pofalla has been licensed to work as a lawyer.
Pofalla has been a member of the CDU since 1975. At first he was engaged in the Junge Union. He was chairman of the JU in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia from 1986 to 1992.
Since 1990 he has been a member of the Bundestag.
Ronald Pofalla has been repeatedly critizised for being rude towards other representatives of the Bundestag and other secretaries of the German government. In September 2011 he seriously insulted Wolfgang Bosbach, senior group leader of the CDU/CSU-group in the Bundestag after an in-house discussion about the enhancement of the European Financial Stability Facility.
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Sergey Lavrov
Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov (Russian: Серге́й Ви́кторович Лавро́в, born 21 March 1950) is a Russian diplomat who has been the Foreign Minister of Russia since 2004. His nomination to the Foreign Minister office were approved by two Russian presidents: (in 2008 by Medvedev, and in 2012 by Putin).
Prior to that, Lavrov was a Soviet diplomat and Russia's ambassador to the United Nations from 1994 to 2004. Lavrov speaks Russian, English, French and Sinhala.
Lavrov was born in Moscow to an Armenian father from Tbilisi and Russian mother from Georgia. He graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) in 1972. Lavrov was sent as a Soviet diplomat to Sri Lanka, where he worked until 1976. He then returned to Moscow and worked in the Department of International Organizations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In 1981, he was sent as a senior adviser to the Soviet mission at the United Nations in New York City, and worked there until 1988. He worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs until 1994, when he returned to work in the United Nations, this time as the Permanent Representative of Russia. While in the latter position, he was President of the United Nations Security Council in December 1995, June 1997, July 1998, October 1999, December 2000, April 2002, and June 2003.
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Theodor Heuss
Theodor Heuss (31 January 1884 – 12 December 1963) was a liberal German politician who served as the first President of the Federal Republic of Germany after World War II from 1949 to 1959. Beside stern Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, Heuss' cordial manners largely contributed to the stabilization of democracy in West Germany during the Wirtschaftswunder years.
Heuss was born in Brackenheim, a small Swabian town near Heilbronn. He studied economics, art history and political science at the universities of Munich and Berlin, receiving his doctorate in 1905 in Munich with Lujo Brentano as his thesis adviser. On 11 April 1908, he married Elly Heuss-Knapp (1881–1952), with whom he had a son. The priest at the wedding ceremony held in Straßburg was Albert Schweitzer, a close friend of Elly.
After his studies Heuss worked as a political journalist in Berlin and from 1905 until 1912 presided over the magazine Die Hilfe ("The Help") published by Friedrich Naumann. From 1912 to 1918, he was editor in chief of the Neckarzeitung (Neckar Newspaper) in Heilbronn. In Berlin, he worked as editor for the weekly newsletter Deutsche Politik ("German Politics"). With Naumann, Heuss in 1903 he joined the liberal Free-minded Union, which in 1910 merged in the Progressive People's Party (Fortschrittliche Volkspartei), in which he was engaged until its dissolution in 1918.
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Thomas de Maizière
Karl Ernst Thomas de Maizière (German pronunciation: [də mɛˈzi̯ɛːɐ̯]; born 21 January 1954) is a German politician (CDU), currently serving as the Minister of Defence (since 3 March 2011) in the Second Cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel.
A close confidant of Merkel, he served as Chief of Staff at the Chancellor's Office and Federal Minister for Special Affairs in the First Cabinet Merkel from 2005 to 2009. Prior to his appointment to the federal cabinet, he served as a cabinet minister of the state of Saxony, including as Chief of Staff, Minister of Finance and Minister of Justice. In the federal cabinet, prior to his appointment as Minister of Defence, he served as Minister of the Interior.
Thomas de Maiziere was born in Bonn to the later Inspector general of the Bundeswehr, Ulrich de Maizière. He graduated at the Aloisiuskolleg in Bonn and studied law and history at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster and the University of Freiburg, he passed his first state examination in law in 1979 and his second 1982, earning his doctorate of law (Dr. jur.) in 1986.
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Thomas Dehler
Thomas Dehler (14 December 1897 – 21 July 1967) was a German politician. He was the Federal Republic of Germany's first Minister of Justice (1949–1953) and chairman of Free Democratic Party (1954–1957).
Dehler was born in Lichtenfels in Upper Franconia, Bavaria. After graduating from grammar school in 1916, he fought in the World War I.
After the war, he studied medicine but soon switched to law and political science, which he studied in Munich, Freiburg and Würzburg. He passed his state examinations in 1920 and 1923, respectively. In 1920, he attained his doctorate with the dissertation "The statement of grounds in penal verdicts". In remembrance of his studies at Würzburg, he later, in 1948, joined the student corps "Humanitas" Würzburg as a Alter Herr.
After 1923, he worked as a solicitor in Munich and, after 1925, in Bamberg.
In 1925, Dehler had married Irma Frank, a woman of Jewish descent.
In 1920, Dehler joined the liberal German Democratic Party (DDP) and in 1926 was elected district party chairman in Bamberg. In 1924 he was among the founding members of the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, a paramilitary group founded in defence of the Weimar Republic. In 1930, the DDP merged with the Young German Order into German State Party, of which Dehler remained a member until its dissolution in 1933.
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Ursula von der Leyen
Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen (born 8 October 1958 in Ixelles, Brussels) is a German politician of the conservative Christian Democratic Union.
Since 30 November 2009, she has served as the Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs in the Second Cabinet Merkel. In the First Cabinet Merkel (2005–2009), she served as Federal Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. By profession she is a physician.
Ursula von der Leyen is the daughter of Ernst (Carl Julius) Albrecht, a prominent CDU politician and European Commission official, as well as a long-time Prime Minister of Lower Saxony.
She was born in Ixelles in Brussels, where her father worked for the European Commission (as a Director-General from 1969), and lived in Belgium until she was 13 years old. In 1971 the family moved to Lehrte in Hanover.
Ursula von der Leyen, is a descendant of Baron Ludwig Knoop, a cotton merchant of the city-state of Bremen and one of the most successful entrepreneurs of the 19th century.
Ursula von der Leyen started her studies in 1977 in the field of economics, at the universities of Göttingen, Münster and London School of Economics. In 1980, she decided to drop her studies in economics, as she was more interested in medicine.[citation needed]
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Walter Scheel
Walter Scheel (German pronunciation: [ˈvaltɐ ˈʃeːl]; born 8 July 1919) is a German politician (FDP). He served as Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development from 1961 to 1966, Foreign Minister of Germany and Vice Chancellor from 1969 to 1974, acting Chancellor of Germany from 7 May to 16 May 1974 (following the resignation of Willy Brandt after the Guillaume Affair), and finally as President of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1974 to 1979.
He is currently the oldest former German president alive and the longest-lived German head of state.
Scheel was born in Solingen (now in North Rhine-Westphalia). During World War II, he served in the Luftwaffe, the last years of the war as a radar operator on a Bf 110 night fighter.
When his Free Democratic Party reentered government in a coalition with Konrad Adenauer's Christian Democratic Union in 1961, Scheel was appointed federal minister of economic cooperation and development. He continued in that office under Chancellor Ludwig Erhard but brought about the downfall of the latter in late 1966 of which he had become the leader, out of the coalition government. A Christian Democratic / Social Democratic Grand Coalition followed. During this time, in 1968, Scheel took over the party presidency from right wing liberal Erich Mende.
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Walter Simons
Walter Simons (24 September 1861 – 14 July 1937) was a German lawyer and politician. He served as president of the Reichsgericht from 1922 to 1929.
Walter Simons was a student of the jurist Rudolph Sohm, and was influenced by Humanism and Lutheran Pietism. After studying history, philosophy, law and economics in Strasbourg, Leipzig and Bonn he started his career in law in 1882 as a law clerk and in 1893 became a judge in Velbert. After working in the Reichsjustizamt in 1905 and in the Foreign Office in 1911 Simons became head of the Reich Chancellery in October 1918. He was the head of the German peace delegation in Versailles and had to resign as he rejected the Treaty of Versailles.
From 25 June 1920 to 4 May 1921 he was Foreign Minister of Germany without party affiliation in the Fehrenbach government, which was a governing coalition consisting of the Centre Party, the German Democratic Party and the German People's Party. As such he represented Germany at the Spa Conference in July 1920 and the London Conference in March 1921.
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Werner Hoyer
Werner Hoyer (born 17 November 1951 in Wuppertal) is a German politician of the liberal Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP), currently serving as the President of the European Investment Bank. Before he was Minister of State at the Foreign Office in the Second Cabinet Merkel under Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle (from 28 October 2009). He previously served in this capacity from 1994 to 1998 in the Fifth Cabinet Kohl under Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel. From 2002 to 2009, he was deputy chair of the FDP group in the Bundestag.
He graduated as an economist at the University of Cologne in 1974, and worked as a scientific assistant there until 1974. He earned a doctorate in economics in 1977, with the dissertation Vermögenseffekte des Geldes - Theoretische Ansätze zur Rolle des Geldes als Vermögensobjekt im Wirtschaftsprozess. From 1985 to 1987, he worked with the Carl Duisberg Society in Cologne. He taught international economics at the University of Cologne until 1994. Hoyer is a member of the Union of European Federalists (UEF). He is married and has two children.
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Wilhelm Solf
Wilhelm Heinrich Solf (5 October 1862 – 6 February 1936) was a German scholar, diplomat, jurist and statesman.
Wilhelm Solf was born into a wealthy and liberal family in Berlin. He attended secondary schools in Anklam in western Pomerania and in Mannheim. He took up the study of Oriental languages, in particular Sanskrit at universities in Berlin, Göttingen and Halle, earning a doctorate in philology in the winter of 1885. Under the supervision of the well-known Indologist Richard Pischel, he wrote an elementary grammar of Sanskrit.
He then found a position at the library of the University of Kiel. While residing there he was drafted into the Imperial Navy to serve his military obligation. However, he was deemed medically unfit for military service and discharged.
Solf joined the German Foreign Office (Consular Service) on 12 December 1888 and was assigned to the Imperial German Consulate General in Calcutta on 1 January 1889. However, he resigned from the consular service after three years to study law at the University of Jena where he obtained his doctorate in law (Doktor juris) in September 1896. His advanced degrees qualified Solf for higher positions in the diplomatic service. He joined the Colonial Department of the Foreign Office (Kolonialabteilung des Auswärtigen Amtes) and in 1898 was assigned as district judge in Dar es Salaam in German East Africa for a short period. In 1899 he was posted to the Samoan Islands, where he served as council chairman in the provisional government of the municipality of Apia, Samoa.
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Willy Brandt
Willy Brandt (born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm; German pronunciation: [ˈvɪli ˈbʁant]; 18 December 1913 – 8 October 1992) was a German politician, Mayor of West Berlin 1957–1966, Chancellor of West Germany 1969–1974, and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) 1964–1987.
Brandt's most important legacy was Ostpolitik, a policy aimed at improving relations with East Germany, Poland, and the Soviet Union. This policy caused considerable controversy in West Germany, but won Brandt the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971.
In 1974, Brandt resigned as Chancellor after Günter Guillaume, one of his closest aides, was exposed as an agent of the Stasi, the East German secret service.
Willy Brandt was born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm in the Free City of Lübeck (German Empire) to Martha Frahm, an unwed mother who worked as a cashier for a department store. His father was an accountant from Hamburg named John Möller, whom Brandt never met. As his mother worked six days a week, he was mainly brought up by his mother's stepfather Ludwig Frahm and his second wife Dora.
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Wolfgang Gerhardt
Wolfgang Gerhardt (born December 31, 1943 in Ulrichstein) is a German politician and was the leader of the FDP from 1995 until he was succeeded by Guido Westerwelle in 2001. He is married and has two children.
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Wolfgang Schäuble
Wolfgang Schäuble [ˈvɔlfɡaŋ ˈʃɔʏblə] (born 18 September 1942) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), currently serving as the Federal Minister of Finance in the Second Cabinet Merkel.
From 1984 to 1991 he was a member of Helmut Kohl's cabinet, first as Federal Minister for Special Affairs of Germany and Chief of the Chancellery and then as Federal Minister of the Interior. Between 1991 and 2000, he was chairman of the CDU/CSU group in the parliament, and from 1998 to 2000 also CDU party chairman. He served again as Federal Minister of the Interior in the First Cabinet Merkel from 2005 to 2009.
Schäuble was born in Freiburg im Breisgau as the son of a tax finance advisor. After completing his Abitur in 1961, Schäuble studied law and economics in Freiburg im Breisgau and Hamburg, which he completed in 1966 and 1970 by passing the First and Second State Examinations respectively, becoming a fully qualified lawyer.
In 1971 Schäuble obtained his doctorate in law, with a dissertation called "The public accountant's professional legal situation within accountancy firms".
wn.com/Wolfgang_Schäuble
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Secretary Clinton Delivers Remarks With German Foreign Minister Westerwelle
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 24:06
- Updated: 16 Oct 2012
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivers remarks with German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle at the Department of State in Washington, DC on January 20, 2012. [Go to video.state.gov for more video and text transcript.]
http://wn.com/Secretary_Clinton_Delivers_Remarks_With_German_Foreign_Minister_Westerwelle
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivers remarks with German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle at the Department of State in Washington, DC on January 20, 2012. [Go to video.state.gov for more video and text transcript.]
Guido Westerwelle - Chronik des Scheiterns
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:59
- Updated: 06 Dec 2012
Guido Westerwelle kämpft um seine Zukunft - FDP-Vorsitz und Vizekanzlerposten gibt er ab. Minister will er bleiben. Kommt er damit durch? Bei manchen Liberalen wächst die Skepsis. Guido Westerwelle geht - und die Flügel der Liberalen kämpfen heftig um die Aufstellung ihrer Partei. Gesundheitsminister Philipp Rösler gilt als Favorit für den Job, aber Generalsekretär Christian Lindner bremst: Noch ist alles offen. Kann Philipp Rösler überhaupt Vorsitzender? Eine Riege von Jungpolitikern um Philipp Rösler will das Erbe von Guido Westerwelle antreten. Dafür soll auch Wirtschaftsminister Rainer Brüderle weichen. Doch der gewiefte Taktiker denkt offenbar nicht daran - und sucht die Auseinandersetzung. Viele befürchten, Westerwelle könnte weiter als heimlicher Schattenvorsitzender hinter dem Rücken Philipp Röslers und Christian Lindners operieren. Guido Westerwelle will nicht mehr FDP-Chef sein. Guido Westerwelle ist Vorsitzender einer Partei, die sich mit einer Wählertäuschung in die Regierung gebracht hat. Guido Westerwelle www.guido-westerwelle.de (*27. Dezember 1961 in Bad Honnef) ist ein deutscher Politiker. Er war von 1994 bis 2001 Generalsekretär und ist seit 2001 Bundesvorsitzender der Freien Demokratischen Partei (FDP). Ferner war Westerwelle von 2006 bis 2009 Vorsitzender der FDP-Bundestagsfraktion und Oppositionsführer im Deutschen Bundestag. Seit dem 28. Oktober 2009 ist er Bundesminister des Auswärtigen im Kabinett Merkel II und Stellvertreter der Bundeskanzlerin ...
http://wn.com/Guido_Westerwelle_Chronik_des_Scheiterns
Guido Westerwelle kämpft um seine Zukunft - FDP-Vorsitz und Vizekanzlerposten gibt er ab. Minister will er bleiben. Kommt er damit durch? Bei manchen Liberalen wächst die Skepsis. Guido Westerwelle geht - und die Flügel der Liberalen kämpfen heftig um die Aufstellung ihrer Partei. Gesundheitsminister Philipp Rösler gilt als Favorit für den Job, aber Generalsekretär Christian Lindner bremst: Noch ist alles offen. Kann Philipp Rösler überhaupt Vorsitzender? Eine Riege von Jungpolitikern um Philipp Rösler will das Erbe von Guido Westerwelle antreten. Dafür soll auch Wirtschaftsminister Rainer Brüderle weichen. Doch der gewiefte Taktiker denkt offenbar nicht daran - und sucht die Auseinandersetzung. Viele befürchten, Westerwelle könnte weiter als heimlicher Schattenvorsitzender hinter dem Rücken Philipp Röslers und Christian Lindners operieren. Guido Westerwelle will nicht mehr FDP-Chef sein. Guido Westerwelle ist Vorsitzender einer Partei, die sich mit einer Wählertäuschung in die Regierung gebracht hat. Guido Westerwelle www.guido-westerwelle.de (*27. Dezember 1961 in Bad Honnef) ist ein deutscher Politiker. Er war von 1994 bis 2001 Generalsekretär und ist seit 2001 Bundesvorsitzender der Freien Demokratischen Partei (FDP). Ferner war Westerwelle von 2006 bis 2009 Vorsitzender der FDP-Bundestagsfraktion und Oppositionsführer im Deutschen Bundestag. Seit dem 28. Oktober 2009 ist er Bundesminister des Auswärtigen im Kabinett Merkel II und Stellvertreter der Bundeskanzlerin ...
- published: 05 Apr 2011
- views: 5401
- author: Geschichtsstunde
Foreign minister on the go - Guido Westerwelle in Latin America | People & Politics
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:28
- Updated: 10 Apr 2012
Guido Westerwelle took a long time to grow into his job as foreign minister. After his bizarre interpretation of the success of the Libyan revolution, he even had to worry about keeping the post. Now he seems to be finding his way. A report about Germany's foreign minister on a trip to Latin America.
http://wn.com/Foreign_minister_on_the_go_Guido_Westerwelle_in_Latin_America_|_People_Politics
Guido Westerwelle took a long time to grow into his job as foreign minister. After his bizarre interpretation of the success of the Libyan revolution, he even had to worry about keeping the post. Now he seems to be finding his way. A report about Germany's foreign minister on a trip to Latin America.
- published: 24 Feb 2012
- views: 374
- author: deutschewelleenglish
Zimmer frei! mit Guido Westerwelle 1/3
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 14:48
- Updated: 17 Nov 2012
mit Götz Alsmann und Christine Westermann, WDR
http://wn.com/Zimmer_frei!_mit_Guido_Westerwelle_1_3
mit Götz Alsmann und Christine Westermann, WDR
- published: 19 Mar 2012
- views: 1695
- author: christophj87
Extra3 - Guido Westerwelle Hymmne
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:37
- Updated: 15 Dec 2012
Die Guido Westerwelle Hymmne von Extra 3. ( 09.01.2009 ) xdrei.de - Die einzige Satire Sendung, laüft immer Donnerstag um 22:30 im NDR. Tipp: der Extra3 Podcast www3.ndr.de
http://wn.com/Extra3_Guido_Westerwelle_Hymmne
Die Guido Westerwelle Hymmne von Extra 3. ( 09.01.2009 ) xdrei.de - Die einzige Satire Sendung, laüft immer Donnerstag um 22:30 im NDR. Tipp: der Extra3 Podcast www3.ndr.de
- published: 09 Jan 2009
- views: 745325
- author: UnterschichtHamwaNet
Rede von Guido Westerwelle zu Europa
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:58
- Updated: 09 Dec 2012
Rede von Guido Westerwelle auf dem Bundesparteitag in Frankfurt zum Thema Europa und Mitgliederentscheid (12.11.2011)
http://wn.com/Rede_von_Guido_Westerwelle_zu_Europa
Rede von Guido Westerwelle auf dem Bundesparteitag in Frankfurt zum Thema Europa und Mitgliederentscheid (12.11.2011)
- published: 15 Nov 2011
- views: 7325
- author: FDP
FDP-NRW Neujahrsempfang 2012 - Dr. Guido Westerwelle MdB
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 35:52
- Updated: 15 Dec 2012
Rede des Bundesminister des Auswärtigen, Dr. Guido Westerwelle MdB, auf dem Neujahrsempfang des FDP-Landesverbandes und der FDP-Landtagsfraltion NRW am 15.01.2012 in Düsseldorf.
http://wn.com/FDP-NRW_Neujahrsempfang_2012_Dr_Guido_Westerwelle_MdB
Rede des Bundesminister des Auswärtigen, Dr. Guido Westerwelle MdB, auf dem Neujahrsempfang des FDP-Landesverbandes und der FDP-Landtagsfraltion NRW am 15.01.2012 in Düsseldorf.
- published: 20 Jan 2012
- views: 1291
- author: FDPLandesverbandNRW
Generalversammlung: Rede von Außenminister Dr. Guido Westerwelle, 28 September 2012
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 13:20
- Updated: 26 Oct 2012
Generalversammlung: Rede von Außenminister Dr. Guido Westerwelle, 28 September 2012 new-york-un.diplo.de twitter.com/GermanyUN flickr.com/GermanyUN
http://wn.com/Generalversammlung_Rede_von_Außenminister_Dr_Guido_Westerwelle,_28_September_2012
Generalversammlung: Rede von Außenminister Dr. Guido Westerwelle, 28 September 2012 new-york-un.diplo.de twitter.com/GermanyUN flickr.com/GermanyUN
- published: 28 Sep 2012
- views: 1104
- author: GermanyUN
Security Council Stakeout: Foreign Minister Westerwelle on Syria, 24 September 2012
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:16
- Updated: 26 Oct 2012
Security Council Stakeout: Foreign Minister Westerwelle on Syria, 24 September 2012
http://wn.com/Security_Council_Stakeout_Foreign_Minister_Westerwelle_on_Syria,_24_September_2012
Security Council Stakeout: Foreign Minister Westerwelle on Syria, 24 September 2012
- published: 24 Sep 2012
- views: 266
- author: GermanyUN
Press Conference with Guido Westerwelle and Nabil Elaraby, Secretary-General of the Arab League
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 16:59
- Updated: 26 Sep 2012
press conference with Guido Westerwelle and Nabil Elaraby, Secretary-General of the Arab League
http://wn.com/Press_Conference_with_Guido_Westerwelle_and_Nabil_Elaraby,_Secretary-General_of_the_Arab_League
press conference with Guido Westerwelle and Nabil Elaraby, Secretary-General of the Arab League
- published: 26 Sep 2012
- views: 174
- author: GermanyUN
Guido Westerwelle spricht Englisch
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 0:48
- Updated: 08 Dec 2012
Hier der erste perfekte englische Satz den Guido Schwesterwelle von sich gegeben hat. *stille* "The published opinion ist not always the public opinion." *applaus* "That's English." *applaus* *stille* "Oder um es auf deutsch zu sagen: Ihr kauft mir den Schneid nicht ab!. Das versprech ich euch!" *applaus*
http://wn.com/Guido_Westerwelle_spricht_Englisch
Hier der erste perfekte englische Satz den Guido Schwesterwelle von sich gegeben hat. *stille* "The published opinion ist not always the public opinion." *applaus* "That's English." *applaus* *stille* "Oder um es auf deutsch zu sagen: Ihr kauft mir den Schneid nicht ab!. Das versprech ich euch!" *applaus*
- published: 29 Oct 2011
- views: 6078
- author: ImKleinerBastard
Interview mit Guido Westerwelle zum Wert Europas
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:46
- Updated: 19 Sep 2012
Der Wert Europas. Darum ging es einen Tag lang bei einer Podiumsdiskussion mit Vertretern aus Wirtschaft, Wissenschaft und Politik im Auswärtigen Amt. Schon in den Tagen vorher hatten viele Menschen bei Facebook das Thema diskutiert, ihre Sorgen geäußert und Fragen gestellt. Die beantwortet Guido Westerwelle im Interview.
http://wn.com/Interview_mit_Guido_Westerwelle_zum_Wert_Europas
Der Wert Europas. Darum ging es einen Tag lang bei einer Podiumsdiskussion mit Vertretern aus Wirtschaft, Wissenschaft und Politik im Auswärtigen Amt. Schon in den Tagen vorher hatten viele Menschen bei Facebook das Thema diskutiert, ihre Sorgen geäußert und Fragen gestellt. Die beantwortet Guido Westerwelle im Interview.
- published: 19 Sep 2012
- views: 322
- author: magazinedeutschland
Guido Westerwelle
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 0:31
- Updated: 12 Dec 2012
www.ich-will-europa.de
http://wn.com/Guido_Westerwelle
Angela Merkel Muss ber Guido Westerwelle Witz Von Jrgen Trittin Lachen Haushalt 2011
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:13
- Updated: 25 Nov 2012
Filme online kostenlos Strom DvdRip Hd : www.maniastrem.com Download von Filmen dvdrip kostenlos : www.maniakinos.com Schauen Sie TV-Sendungen und Anime-Streaming kostenlos DvdRip : www.seriator.com Download-TV-Shows, Anime DvDRiP frei : www.seriedownload.com
http://wn.com/Angela_Merkel_Muss_ber_Guido_Westerwelle_Witz_Von_Jrgen_Trittin_Lachen_Haushalt_2011
Filme online kostenlos Strom DvdRip Hd : www.maniastrem.com Download von Filmen dvdrip kostenlos : www.maniakinos.com Schauen Sie TV-Sendungen und Anime-Streaming kostenlos DvdRip : www.seriator.com Download-TV-Shows, Anime DvDRiP frei : www.seriedownload.com
- published: 04 Aug 2012
- views: 1360
- author: simaosky3
Bundeshaushalt 2013: Guido Westerwelle
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 13:21
- Updated: 25 Nov 2012
Außenminsiter Guido Westerwelle spricht am 21.11.2012 im Deutschen Bundestag zum Etat des Auswärtigen Amtes für das Jahr 2013.
http://wn.com/Bundeshaushalt_2013_Guido_Westerwelle
Außenminsiter Guido Westerwelle spricht am 21.11.2012 im Deutschen Bundestag zum Etat des Auswärtigen Amtes für das Jahr 2013.
- published: 21 Nov 2012
- views: 853
- author: phoenix
Wütender Mob stürmt Deutsche Botschaft im Sudan - Interview mit Guido Westerwelle
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:23
- Updated: 10 Dec 2012
Im Zusammenhang mit dem angeblich beleidigenden Film "Innocence of Muslims" über Mohammed ist die Deutsche Botschaft im Sudan gestürmt und ua die Fahne in Brand gesteckt worden, weil Deutschland angeblich zulässt, Mohammed Karikaturen zu veröffentlichen. . .und Frau Merkel Kurt Westergaard (Medienpreis M100) auch noch gelobt und geehrt hatte.
http://wn.com/Wütender_Mob_stürmt_Deutsche_Botschaft_im_Sudan_Interview_mit_Guido_Westerwelle
Im Zusammenhang mit dem angeblich beleidigenden Film "Innocence of Muslims" über Mohammed ist die Deutsche Botschaft im Sudan gestürmt und ua die Fahne in Brand gesteckt worden, weil Deutschland angeblich zulässt, Mohammed Karikaturen zu veröffentlichen. . .und Frau Merkel Kurt Westergaard (Medienpreis M100) auch noch gelobt und geehrt hatte.
- published: 14 Sep 2012
- views: 2561
- author: LASTPUTLIGHTOFF
German Science Centre -- Opening Ceremony with Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, 13 November 2012
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:24
- Updated: 11 Dec 2012
http://wn.com/German_Science_Centre_-_Opening_Ceremony_with_Foreign_Minister_Guido_Westerwelle,_13_November_2012
President Peres Meets Minister of Foreign affairs from Germany Guido Westerwelle
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:08
- Updated: 21 Nov 2012
President Peres Meets Minister of Foreign affairs from Germany Dr. Guido Westerwelle Read more here: www.president.gov.il Find the English Homepage from President of the State of Israel, Mr. Shimon Peres here: www.president.gov.il Find the video "President Peres Meets Minister of Foreign affairs from Germany Guido Westerwelle" here: www.youtube.com
http://wn.com/President_Peres_Meets_Minister_of_Foreign_affairs_from_Germany_Guido_Westerwelle
President Peres Meets Minister of Foreign affairs from Germany Dr. Guido Westerwelle Read more here: www.president.gov.il Find the English Homepage from President of the State of Israel, Mr. Shimon Peres here: www.president.gov.il Find the video "President Peres Meets Minister of Foreign affairs from Germany Guido Westerwelle" here: www.youtube.com
- published: 21 Nov 2012
- views: 39
- author: Helmut Zermin
EILMELDUNG - Guido Westerwelle ist Bundeskanzler !
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 0:56
- Updated: 11 Nov 2012
EILMELDUNG - Guido Westerwelle ist Bundeskanzler !
http://wn.com/EILMELDUNG_Guido_Westerwelle_ist_Bundeskanzler_!
EILMELDUNG - Guido Westerwelle ist Bundeskanzler !
- published: 06 Sep 2012
- views: 2072
- author: MisterSirComedian
Das Guido Westerwelle Lied - Extra 3 Podcast vom 8.1.09
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:52
- Updated: 12 Dec 2012
Guido Westerwelle mit der perfekten Welle von Juli. (C) NDR 2009 Kommentare sollten sich auf das Video beziehen, ideologische Monologe ohne Bezug und Beleidigungen werden gelöscht
http://wn.com/Das_Guido_Westerwelle_Lied_Extra_3_Podcast_vom_8109
Guido Westerwelle mit der perfekten Welle von Juli. (C) NDR 2009 Kommentare sollten sich auf das Video beziehen, ideologische Monologe ohne Bezug und Beleidigungen werden gelöscht
- published: 08 Jan 2009
- views: 138655
- author: Oldtrailer
Harald Schmidt Show: Hat Guido Westerwelle Adolf Hitler verursacht?
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:03
- Updated: 06 Dec 2012
http://wn.com/Harald_Schmidt_Show_Hat_Guido_Westerwelle_Adolf_Hitler_verursacht?
President Peres Meets Minister of Foreign affairs Guido Westerwelle
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:08
- Updated: 04 Dec 2012
http://wn.com/President_Peres_Meets_Minister_of_Foreign_affairs_Guido_Westerwelle
Markus Lanz (vom 11. Oktober 2012) - ZDF (1/6)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 15:00
- Updated: 07 Dec 2012
Zu Gast sind Außenminister Dr. Guido Westerwelle, Kabarettist Mathias Richling, Schriftsteller Salman Rushdie, Moderator Jörg Thadeusz, Journalistin Anna Engelke sowie Hundetrainer Martin Rütter. www.zdf.de
http://wn.com/Markus_Lanz_vom_11_Oktober_2012_ZDF_1_6
Zu Gast sind Außenminister Dr. Guido Westerwelle, Kabarettist Mathias Richling, Schriftsteller Salman Rushdie, Moderator Jörg Thadeusz, Journalistin Anna Engelke sowie Hundetrainer Martin Rütter. www.zdf.de
- published: 15 Oct 2012
- views: 1617
- author: MarkusLanz2012
photo: AP / Nick Ut
14 Dec 2012
Former President Bill Clinton, President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, meet 55-year-old Martha Sellers. For the past nine years, Sellers has worked as a Walmart cashier in Paramount, California ... More than 10,000 community members joined more than 30 striking employees who walked off the job to demand better working conditions. . "It was wonderful ... That's not too much to ask for." ... 1698 ... ....(size: 23.6Kb)
photo: AP / Newtown Bee, Shannon Hicks
15 Dec 2012
The massacre of 26 children and adults at an elementary school in the US state of Connecticut elicited horror and soul-searching around the world even as it raised more basic questions about why the gunman, a 20-year-old described as brilliant but remote, would have been driven to such a crime and how he chose his victims ... He paused for several seconds to keep his composure as he teared up and wiped an eye ... ... "I'm numb ... Yes, yeah....(size: 8.8Kb)
photo: AP / Newtown Bee, Shannon Hicks
15 Dec 2012
Newtown, Conn. Twenty schoolchildren were slaughtered by a heavily armed gunman who opened fire at a suburban elementary school in Connecticut on Friday, ultimately killing at least 27 people including himself in the one of the worst mass shootings in US history ... Authorities found 18 children and seven adults, including the gunman, dead at the school, and two children were pronounced dead later after being taken to a hospital ... Reuters ....(size: 7.5Kb)
photo: AP / Jessica Hill
14 Dec 2012
More than two dozen people, mostly elementary school children, were shot and killed at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school this morning, federal and state sources tell ABC News. The massacre involved two gunmen at a Connecticut school this morning, prompting the town of Newtown to lock down all of its schools and draw SWAT teams to the school, authorities said today. State Police confirm that one shooter is dead ... at ABCNews.com ... ....(size: 4.5Kb)
photo: AP / Jessica Hill
15 Dec 2012
December 15, 2012 -- Updated 0947 GMT (1747 HKT). Newtown, Connecticut (CNN) -- The bodies of children and educators lay where they fell in a Newtown, Connecticut, elementary school -- in classrooms and hallways -- as investigators worked to identity the dead early Saturday while piecing together the path of the gunman ... J. Paul Vance, a spokesman for the Connecticut State Police. Timeline. School violence in U.S ... J ... HIDE CAPTION. << ... 1....(size: 24.9Kb)
Deutsche Welle
14 Dec 2012
Germany is set to send Patriot missiles and soldiers to Turkey to help defend it from potential air attacks from neighboring Syria ... Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle stressed that the mission was of a “purely defensive” nature. "It it is only natural for us to assist our partner and ally Turkey in the context of NATO to defend itself against an external threat," Westerwelle said ... Their mission is to run until January 2014. DW.DE ... ....(size: 2.8Kb)
Khaleej Times
14 Dec 2012
Eight lawmakers abstained ... Only the far-left Die Linke party was opposed ... Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle stressed in a joint press conference on December 6 with Defence Minister Thomas de Maiziere that the missiles’ mandate would “in no way” lead to a deployment in Syria ... . ....(size: 1.5Kb)
Taipei Times
13 Dec 2012
“At the moment I am a candidate for Palazzo Chigi” — the prime minister’s residence ... Germany reacted to earlier criticism from Berlusconi on Tuesday, with German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle saying it was unacceptable for Germany to be used as a target in a “populist election campaign.”. Westerwelle also said that if Italy’s new government goes back on Monti’s reforms “it would be a dangerous development for Europe.” ....(size: 3.4Kb)
BBC News
13 Dec 2012
Finally, the European leaders gathered in Brussels can actually relax a little. For the first time in months, the financial markets do not hang over their summit deliberations like the Sword of Damacles ... Yet it is also more than that ... Vicious circle ... What is more, the europhile German Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, and 10 of his European peers have drawn up a plan for a full-blown political union, including a common military ... ....(size: 11.2Kb)
Middle East Online
12 Dec 2012
"It is our goal that, after the European Union, now the 130 states in the Friends of Syria group will send a message of recognition to the National Coalition of the Syrian opposition," said German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. Al-Qaeda concerns ... Westerwelle said the funds would go in particular to the Red Cross, the World Food Program and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. ....(size: 4.0Kb)
North Jersey
12 Dec 2012
BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Mali's interim president has named a replacement after soldiers behind a coup earlier this year forced out the prime minister and placed him under house arrest, provoking international condemnation. ... German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle has warned that the forced resignation makes Western countries wary of getting involved in a military incursion in the north.. "One thing is clear ... Sanogo (coup leader) ... ....(size: 10.7Kb)
Irish Times
12 Dec 2012
DEREK SCALLY. Analysis. Germany’s love of all things Italian was immortalised by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s hymn to the country “where the lemon blossom grows” ... When news of the call leaked, German officials denied Merkel was interfering in Italy’s domestic affairs ... “Neither Germany nor Europe is to blame for the difficulties in Italy,” said German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle ... ....(size: 2.5Kb)
CNBC
12 Dec 2012
The German government has warned Silvio Berlusconi not to target Berlin in the run-up to elections early next year after the former Italian prime minister attacked the "German-centric" economic policies of his successor Mario Monti ... Clearly irritated, Berlin was quick to respond. Guido Westerwelle, foreign minister, said the government would not interfere in Italy's elections, adding ... ....(size: 3.2Kb)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
12 Dec 2012
BAMAKO, Mali -- Soldiers arrested Mali's prime minister and forced him to resign before dawn Tuesday, showing that the military remains the real power in this troubled West African nation, despite handing back authority to civilians after a coup in March ... to announce his resignation, hours after soldiers stormed his house ... 11, 2012 ... The 60-year-old Mr ... German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle warned Tuesday that Mr ... U.S ... The U.N ... ....(size: 4.1Kb)
The Washington Post
12 Dec 2012
BAMAKO, Mali — Soldiers arrested Mali’s prime minister and forced him to resign before dawn on Tuesday, showing that the military remains the real power in this troubled West African nation despite handing back authority to civilians after a coup in March ... German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle warned Tuesday that Diarra’s forced resignation makes Western countries wary of getting involved in a military incursion....(size: 5.2Kb)
The Guardian
12 Dec 2012
International community condemns move by leaders of March coup and urges them to return Mali to constitutional order. Mali's new prime minister, Diango Cissoko, (L) and Mali's interim president, Dioncounda Traore, in the presidential residence in Bamako. Photograph ... German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle also warned that the forced resignation made western countries wary of getting involved in a military incursion in the north ... ....(size: 5.8Kb)
Asia Times
12 Dec 2012
By Pepe Escobar ... How exciting ... The Rolling. ... But Barroso may have been on to something when he defended the euro ... Reciting his lines directly from Washington, Rasmussen is strongly supported by Turkey, Britain and France, with Germany caught in an extremely ambivalent position; German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle has discarded war in favor of a political solution ... Angela Merkel and Westerwelle are not exactly a suicidal bunch....(size: 14.7Kb)
STL Today
12 Dec 2012
Mali's new prime minister vowed Wednesday to prioritize the country's problems in the north after his predecessor was forced out of office and placed under house arrest by soldiers responsible for a military coup earlier this year ... German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle also warned that the forced resignation makes Western countries wary of getting involved in a military incursion in the north. "One thing is clear ... Coup leader Capt ... ....(size: 4.8Kb)
| Guido Westerwelle | |
|---|---|
.jpg) |
|
| Westerwelle at a meeting with Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt in 2010 | |
| Foreign Minister of Germany | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 28 October 2009 |
|
| Chancellor | Angela Merkel |
| Preceded by | Frank-Walter Steinmeier |
| Vice-Chancellor of Germany | |
| In office 28 October 2009 – 16 May 2011[1] |
|
| Chancellor | Angela Merkel |
| Preceded by | Frank-Walter Steinmeier |
| Succeeded by | Philipp Rösler |
| Chairman of the Free Democratic Party | |
| In office 4 May 2001 – 13 May 2011 |
|
| Preceded by | Wolfgang Gerhardt |
| Succeeded by | Philipp Rösler |
| Member of the Bundestag | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 1996 |
|
| Constituency | Nordrhein-Westfalen, list (no. 01) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1961-12-27) 27 December 1961 (age 50) Bad Honnef, West Germany (now Germany) |
| Political party | Free Democratic Party |
| Domestic partner | Michael Mronz |
| Residence | Berlin (Official) Bonn (Private) |
| Alma mater | University of Bonn Distance University of Hagen |
| Profession | Lawyer |
| Website | guido-westerwelle.de |
Guido Westerwelle (German pronunciation: [ˈɡiːdo ˈvɛstɐˌvɛlə]; born December 27, 1961) is a German liberal politician, who, since 28 October 2009, has been serving as the Foreign Minister in the second cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel, and who was Vice Chancellor of Germany from 2009 to 2011. He is the first openly gay person to hold either of those positions. He has been the chairman of the Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP) since May 2001, but stepped down in 2011.[2] A lawyer by profession, he has been a member of the Bundestag since 1996.
Contents |
Early life and education[link]
Guido Westerwelle was born in Bad Honnef in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. He graduated from Ernst Moritz Arndt Gymnasium in 1980 after academic struggles resulted in his departure from previous institutions where he was considered an average student at best, but substandard otherwise.[3] He studied law at the University of Bonn from 1980 to 1987. Following the First and Second State Law Examinations in 1987 and 1991 respectively, he began practicing as an attorney in Bonn in 1991. In 1994, he earned a doctoral degree in law from FernUniversität Hagen.
Career in the FDP[link]
Westerwelle joined the FDP in 1980. He was a founding member of the Junge Liberale, the youth organization of that party, and was its chairman from 1983 to 1988.
Having been a member of the Executive Board of the FDP since 1988, he first gained national prominence in 1994, when he was appointed Secretary General of the party. As such, he was a notable proponent of an unlimited free market economy and took a leading part in drafting a new party programme.
In 1996, Westerwelle was first elected a member of the Bundestag, filling in for Heinz Lanfermann, who had resigned from his seat after entering the Ministry of Justice. In 1998, Westerwelle was re-elected to parliament.
In 2001, he succeeded Wolfgang Gerhardt as party chairman, who, however, remained chairman of the FDP's parliamentary group. Westerwelle, the youngest party chairman at the time, emphasized economics and education, and espoused a strategy initiated by his deputy Jürgen Möllemann, who, as chairman of the North Rhine-Westphalia branch of party, had led his party back into the state parliament, gaining 9.8% of the vote. This strategy, transferred to the federal level, was dubbed Project 18, referring both to the envisioned percentage and the German age of majority. Leading up to the 2002 elections, he positioned his party in equidistance to the major parties and refused to commit his party to a coalition with either the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats. He was also declared the FDP's candidate for the office of chancellor. Since the FDP had never claimed such a candicacy (and hasn't done since) and had no chance of attaining it against the two major parties, this move was widely seen as flippant political marketing alongside other moves, such as driving around in a campaign van dubbed Guidomobile, wearing the figure 18 on the soles of his shoes or appearance in the Big Brother TV show.[4] Eventually, the federal elections yielded a slight increase of the FDP's vote from 6.8% to 7.4%. Despite this setback, he was reelected as party chairman in 2003.
In the federal elections of 2005, Westerwelle was his party's frontrunner. When neither Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrats and Greens nor a coalition of Christian and Free Democrats, favoured by Angela Merkel and Westerwelle, managed to gain a majority of seats, Westerwelle rejected overtures by Chancellor Schröder to save his chancellorship by entering his coalition, preferring to become one of the leaders of the disparate opposition of the subsequently formed "Grand Coalition" of Christian and Social Democrats, with Merkel as Chancellor. Westerwelle became a vocal critic of the new government. In 2006, according to an internal agreement, Westerwelle succeeded Wolfgang Gerhardt as chairman of the parliamentary group.
Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor of Germany[link]
In the federal elections of 2009, Westerwelle committed his party to a coalition with Dr Merkel's CDU/CSU, ruling out a coalition with Social Democrats and Greens, and led his party to unprecedented 14.6%.[5] In accordance with earlier announcements, he formed a coalition government with CDU/CSU. On October 28, he was sworn in as Foreign Minister and Vice-Chancellor, becoming the head of the Foreign Office.[6][7][8] In 2010 he announced he wouldn't be taking his husband to hostile countries.[9]
His deputies at the Foreign Office are Werner Hoyer and Cornelia Pieper as Ministers of State. Hoyer previously held the same office in the Cabinet Kohl V.
By May 2011 however his party had collapsed in several states, including Rhineland-Palatinate and Bremen where they failed to secure the 5% threshold to be seated in parliament.[10] Westerwelle then stepped down as party leader. By July the party was only receiving 3% support in opinion polls, a record low,[11] reflecting what political insiders had called his "last stand" in January, comparing Westerwelle and his party to Captain Ahab and the Pequod.[12]
In July 2011 Westerwelle was the President of the United Nations Security Council as he headed the German delegation to the United Nations.[13]
Positions[link]
Westerwelle is a staunch supporter of the free market and has proposed reforms to curtail the German welfare state and deregulate German labor law. In an interview in February 2003, Westerwelle described trade unions as a "plague on our country" and said union officials were "the pall bearers of the welfare state and of the prosperity in our country".[14] He has called for substantial tax cuts and smaller government, in line with the general direction of his party. In 2001, he was one of the first politicians to push for a biometric passport.[15]
He opposes Google Street View and stated "I will do all I can to prevent it.".[16]
Controversy[link]
His chairmanship has also seen considerable controversy. Critics inside and outside the FDP have accused him of focusing on public relations, as opposed to developing and promoting sound public policy, especially in the election campaign of 2002. Westerwelle himself, who was made party chairman particularly because his predecessor Wolfgang Gerhardt had been viewed by many as dull and stiff, has labeled his approach as Spaßpolitik (fun politics) in the past.[17]
On September 27, 2009, at a press conference after the election, Westerwelle refused to answer a question in English from a BBC reporter, stating that "it is normal to speak German in Germany".[18][19]
He made public statements in 2010 about the "welfare state",[20] claiming that promising the people effortless prosperity may lead to "late Roman decadence", in reference to a verdict in the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany regarding Hartz IV. This caused quite a stir in Germany.
His official trips as foreign minister have included his partner Michael Mronz, an event manager, and Ralf Marohn, a partner in his brother's company,[21] also causing controversy. Westerwelle and the FDP defended this by saying that it is normal for foreign ministers to take industry representatives on their trips, ignoring the fact that these particular representatives had a personal relationship with him.
In late November 2010, leaked U.S. diplomatic cables revealed that American diplomats considered Westerwelle an obstacle to deeper transatlantic relations and were skeptical of Westerwelle's abilities, with one cable comparing Westerwelle unfavorably to former German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher.[22]
The Ministry and the Past[link]
In 2010, the Foreign Ministry released a report prepared for Westerwelle called The Ministry and the Past, which alleged the ministry's collusion with the Nazis. Westerwelle said the report "shamed" the institution.[23]
Espionage[link]
On December 3, 2010, Westerwelle dismissed his personal assistant Helmut Metzner following a Wikileaks diplomatic cables release which led to Metzner admitting that he regularly spied for the Americans.[24]
Personal life[link]
On July 20, 2004, Westerwelle attended Angela Merkel's 50th birthday party accompanied by his partner, Michael Mronz, thereby tacitly acknowledging that he is gay. It was the first time he had attended an official event with his husband.[25] The couple registered their partnership on September 17, 2010 in a private ceremony in Bonn.[26][27]
References[link]
- ^ "Philipp Rösler neuer Vizekanzler" (in German). German government. May 18, 2011. http://www.bundesregierung.de/nn_1264/Content/DE/Artikel/2011/05/2011-05-18-vizekanzler-roesler.html. Retrieved May 18, 2011.
- ^ "Westerwelle gibt den FDP-Vorsitz ab" Die Zeit (April 3, 2011) (German)
- ^ [Vgl. Setzen, Sechs! - Schulgeschichten aus Deutschland (3/3). Experiment Schule. Dokumentarfilm von Susanne Bausch im Auftrag des SWR. Deutsche Erstausstrahlung am 22. Dezember 2005
- ^ sueddeutsche.de GmbH, Munich, Germany. "FDP-Kanzlerkandidat - „Eher wird Pieper Päpstin als Westerwelle Kanzler“ - Deutschland". sueddeutsche.de. http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/488/399272/text/. Retrieved 2010-04-25.
- ^ "Übersicht". Bundeswahlleiter.de. http://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/en/bundestagswahlen/BTW_BUND_09/ergebnisse/bundesergebnisse/index.html. Retrieved 2010-04-25.
- ^ Handelsblatt, Düsseldorf, Germany (2009-10-16). "Der schwarz-gelbe Showdown beginnt - Politik - Deutschland". Handelsblatt.com. http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/der-schwarz-gelbe-showdown-beginnt;2469840. Retrieved 2010-04-25.
- ^ "German elections seen triggering brief stocks rally". Reuters. 2009-09-27. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE58Q27P20090927. Retrieved 2010-04-25.
- ^ [1][dead link]
- ^ "Westerwelle won't take partner to anti-gay lands", The Local. August 11, 2010. Accessed June 13, 2011
- ^ "Germany's liberal collapse parallels Clegg's fate", Hans Kundnani. The Guardian. May 25, 2011. Accessed June 13, 2011
- ^ "GERMAN LIBERALS COLLAPSE TO 3 PERCENT", AGI. 27 july 2011. Retrieved 7 aug 2011
- ^ "Guido Westerwelle's Last Stand", Rolland Nelles. Der Spiegel. 6 jan 2011. Retrieved 7 aug 2011
- ^ [2]
- ^ Brinkmann, Hans (22 February 2003). "WESTERWELLE-Interview für die "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung" [Interview with Westerwelle for the "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung"]" (in German). Archived from the original on 13 December 2009. http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.guido-westerwelle.de%2F%3Fwc_c%3D395%26wc_lkm%3D37%26id%3D612&date=2009-12-12.
- ^ Zeh, Juli (21 August 2009). "Angriff auf die Freiheit [Book Introduction]" (in German). http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/0,1518,641899,00.html.
- ^ German Foreign Minister joins criticism of Google's mapping program
- ^ "Guido Westerwelle, Germany's Mittelman". TIME. 2009-09-07. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1918826,00.html. Retrieved 2010-06-25.
- ^ "Future foreign minister Westerwelle refuses to answer English question". thelocal.de. http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20090928-22217.html. Retrieved 2010-04-25.
- ^ Off to the Auswärtiges Amt The Economist 1 October 2009
- ^ "Dekadenz-Sprüche: Westerwelles explosives Oppositions-Recycling - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten - Politik". Spiegel.de. http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,678319,00.html. Retrieved 2010-04-25.
- ^ "Liberaler Klüngel: FDP-Reiseaffäre". Spiegel.de. http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,684722,00.html. Retrieved 2010-04-25.
- ^ "How America Views the Germans". Der Spiegel. 30 November 2010. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,731645-2,00.html. Retrieved 30 November 2010.
- ^ "German FM 'shamed' by ministry's collaboration with Hitler", Haaretz. May 28, 2010. Accessed June 13, 2011
- ^ "Heads start rolling in WikiLeaks affair". EU Observer. 3 December 2010. http://euobserver.com/9/31416. Retrieved 3 December 2010.
- ^ "Out is In Among German Politicians". Deutsche Welle. 2004-07-23. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1273893,00.html. Retrieved 2007-06-27.
- ^ "Bild article (in German)". 2010-09-17. http://www.bild.de/BILD/politik/2010/09/17/aussenminister-hochzeit-guido-westerwelle/heiratet-michael-mronz.html.
- ^ "Germany’s Westerwelle Enters Civil Partnership, Bild Says" BusinessWeek (September 17, 2010)
Bibliography[link]
- Guido Westerwelle, the Liberals' Top Gun Profile in Deutsche Welle, 20 July 2005
External links[link]
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Guido Westerwelle |
- Westerwelle's personal website (in German)
- Westerwelle's website as member of the Bundestag (in German)
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Frank-Walter Steinmeier |
Minister for Foreign Affairs 2009–present |
Incumbent |
| Vice-Chancellor of Germany 2009–2011 |
Succeeded by Philipp Rösler |
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Westerwelle, Guido |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | German politician |
| Date of birth | 1961-12-27 |
| Place of birth | Bad Honnef, West Germany (now Germany) |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
http://wn.com/Guido_Westerwelle
Related pages:
http://it.wn.com/Guido Westerwelle
http://cs.wn.com/Guido Westerwelle
http://id.wn.com/Guido Westerwelle
http://es.wn.com/Guido Westerwelle
http://nl.wn.com/Guido Westerwelle
http://pt.wn.com/Guido Westerwelle
http://pl.wn.com/Guido Westerwelle
http://fr.wn.com/Guido Westerwelle
http://ru.wn.com/Вестервелле, Гидо
http://de.wn.com/Guido Westerwelle
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_Westerwelle
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
| Nabil Elaraby | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Secretary-General of the Arab League | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 1 July 2011 |
|
| Deputy | Samir Nasibi |
| Preceded by | Amr Moussa |
| Foreign Minister of Egypt | |
| In office 6 March 2011 – 1 June 2011 |
|
| President | Hussein Tantawi (Acting) |
| Prime Minister | Essam Sharaf |
| Preceded by | Ahmed Aboul Gheit |
| Succeeded by | Mohamed Orabi |
| Permanent Representative of Egypt to the United Nations | |
| In office 20 May 1991 – 20 May 1995 |
|
| Preceded by | Amr Moussa |
| Succeeded by | Ahmed Asmat Abdel-Meguid |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1935-05-15) May 15, 1935 (age 77) Cairo, Kingdom of Egypt |
| Nationality | Egyptian |
| Alma mater | Cairo University, New York University School of Law |
| Profession | Attorney |
| Religion | Sunni Islam |
Nabil Elaraby (Arabic: نبيل العربي) (born 15 March 1935) is an Egyptian diplomat, currently the Secretary-General of the Arab League having been elected on 15 May 2011. Previously, he was Foreign Minister of Egypt in Essam Sharaf's government from March-June 2011.
Contents |
Early life and education[link]
Elaraby holds a J.S.D. (1971) and an LL.M. (1969) from New York University School of Law and a law degree from Cairo University's Faculty of Law (1955).
Career[link]
Elaraby is a partner at Zaki Hashem & Partners in Cairo, specializing in negotiations and arbitrations.
Egyptian government[link]
Elaraby was Legal Adviser and Director in the Legal and Treaties Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1976 to 1978 and then Ambassador to India from 1981 to 1983; he then returned to his previous post at the Foreign Ministry from 1983 to 1987.
He was Legal Adviser to the Egyptian delegation to the Camp David Middle East peace conference in 1978, Head of the Egyptian delegation to the Taba negotiations from 1985 to 1989, and Agent of the Egyptian Government to the Egyptian-Israeli arbitration tribunal (Taba dispute) from 1986 to 1988.
He was appointed by the Egyptian Minister of Justice on the list of arbitrations in civil and commercial affairs in Egypt in 1995.
United Nations[link]
In 1968 Elaraby was an Adlai Stevenson Fellow in International Law at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). He was appointed a Special Fellow in International Law at UNITAR in 1973, and was Legal Adviser to the Egyptian delegation to the United Nations Geneva Middle East peace conference from 1973-1975.
Elarby was Egypt's Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York from 1978 to 1981, the Permanent Representative to the UN Office at Geneva from 1987 to 1991, the Permanent Representative to the UN in New York from 1991 to 1999, a member of the International Law Commission of the United Nations from 1994 to 2004, President of the Security Council in 1996, and Vice-President of the General Assembly in 1993, 1994 and 1997. He was a commissioner at the United Nations Compensation Commission in Geneva from 1999 to 2001, and a member of the International Court of Justice from 2001 until February 2006.
Elaraby has served as Chairman for the First (Disarmament and international security questions) Committee of the General Assembly, the Informal Working Group on an Agenda for Peace, the Working Group on Legal Instruments for the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, and the UN Special Committee on Enhancing the Principle of the Prohibition of the Use of Force in International Relations.
Other international work[link]
Elaraby was an Arbitrator at the International Chamber of Commerce International Court of Arbitration in Paris in a dispute concerning the Suez Canal from 1989 to 1992. He was a judge in the Judicial Tribunal of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries in 1990.
Elaraby was a member of the governing board of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute from 2000 to 2010.[1] Since December 2008 he has been serving as the Director of the Regional Cairo Centre for International Commercial Arbitration[2] and as a counsel of the Sudanese government in the "Abyei Boundary" Arbitration between the Government of Sudan and the Sudanese People's Revolutionary Movement.[3]
Elaraby has also served as a Member of the Board for the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration, a Member of the Board for the Egyptian Society of International Law, and a Member of the World Intellectual Property Organization Arbitration and Mediation Centre List of Neutrals.
2011 Egyptian revolution and transitional government[link]
See also: 2011 Egyptian revolution
Elaraby was one of the group of about 30 high-profile Egyptians acting as liaison between the protesters and the government, and pressing for the removal of President Hosni Mubarak.[4]
At a democracy forum on 25 February 2011, he said the Egyptian government suffered from a lack of separation of powers, a lack of transparency and a lack of judicial independence. He said foreign policy should be based on Egypt's interests, including "holding Israel accountable when it does not respect its obligations."[5]
On 6 March 2011, he was appointed Foreign Minister of Egypt in Essam Sharaf's post-revolution cabinet.[6] Since then he has opened the Rafah Border Crossing with Gaza and brokered the reconciliation of Hamas with Fatah.[7]
Arab League[link]
On 15 May 2011, he was appointed Secretary General of the Arab League, succeeding Amr Moussa.[8][9] He officially took this office on 1 July 2011.
References[link]
- ^ "CV Dr Nabil Elaraby". The Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (CRCICA). http://www.crcica.org.eg/cv_nabil_elaraby.html.
- ^ [http://www.globalarbitrationreview.com/news/article/15002/elaraby-direct-cairo-centre/ Elaraby to direct Cairo Centre, Global Arbitration Review, 15 December 2008
- ^ The Government of Sudan / The Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (Abyei Arbitration), Permanent Court of Arbitration
- ^ Elaraby in Egypt's "council of the wise", Alison Ross, Global Arbitration Review, 9 February 2011
- ^ Answering the public, Egypt names a new cabinet, Neil MacFarquhar and Mona el-Naggar, The New York Times, 6 March 2011
- ^ Egypt appoints new key ministers, Al Jazeera English, 6 March 2011
- ^ Egypt's new foreign policy tests old alliances, Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times, 8 May 2011
- ^ Egypt FM Nabil El-Arabi named Arab League chief, Ahram Online, 15 May 2011
- ^ Elaraby to head Arab League, David Elward, Global Arbitration Review, 16 May 2011
External links[link]
- Arab League
- Biography at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- CV of Dr. Nabil Elaraby, Director at The Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- Works by or about Nabil Elaraby in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Egypt’s foreign minister on the way forward after Mubarak, Lally Weymouth, The Washington Post, 6 May 2011
- Nabil El-Arabi -- justice-based diplomacy, Dina Ezzat, Al-Ahram Weekly, 19 May 2011
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Ahmed Aboul Gheit |
Foreign Minister of Egypt 2011 |
Succeeded by Mohamed Orabi |
| Diplomatic posts | ||
| Preceded by Amr Moussa |
Permanent Representative of Egypt to the United Nations 1991–1995 |
Succeeded by Ahmed Asmat Abdel-Meguid |
| Preceded by Amr Moussa |
Secretary-General of the Arab League 2011–present |
Succeeded by Incumbent |
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Elaraby, Nabil |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | |
| Date of birth | 15 May 1935 |
| Place of birth | Cairo, Egypt |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
http://wn.com/Nabil_Elaraby
Related pages:
http://ru.wn.com/Аль-Араби, Набиль
http://fr.wn.com/Nabil El-Arabi
http://de.wn.com/Nabil Elaraby
http://pl.wn.com/Nabil al-Arabi
http://es.wn.com/Nabil el-Araby
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabil_Elaraby
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
| Angela Merkel | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Chancellor of Germany | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 22 November 2005 |
|
| President | Horst Köhler Christian Wulff Joachim Gauck |
| Deputy | Franz Müntefering Frank-Walter Steinmeier Guido Westerwelle Philipp Rösler |
| Preceded by | Gerhard Schröder |
| Minister of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety | |
| In office 17 November 1994 – 26 October 1998 |
|
| Chancellor | Helmut Kohl |
| Preceded by | Klaus Töpfer |
| Succeeded by | Jürgen Trittin |
| Minister of Women and Youth | |
| In office 18 January 1991 – 17 November 1994 |
|
| Chancellor | Helmut Kohl |
| Preceded by | Ursula Lehr |
| Succeeded by | Claudia Nolte |
| Member of the Bundestag | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 2 December 1990 |
|
| Preceded by | Constituency established |
| Constituency | Stralsund-Nordvorpommern- Rügen |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Angela Dorothea Kasner (1954-07-17) 17 July 1954 (age 57) Hamburg, West Germany (now Germany) |
| Political party | Christian Democratic Union (1990–present) |
| Other political affiliations |
Democratic Awakening (1989–1990) |
| Spouse(s) | Ulrich Merkel (1977–1982) Joachim Sauer (1998–present) |
| Alma mater | University of Leipzig |
| Religion | Lutheran |
| Signature |  |
Angela Dorothea Merkel, German: [aŋˈɡeːla doʁoˈteːa ˈmɛʁkl̩] ( listen);[1] née Kasner (born 17 July 1954) is the Chancellor of Germany and Chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).[2] Merkel is the first female Chancellor of Germany.
A physical chemist by professional background, Merkel entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989 and briefly served as the deputy spokesperson for Lothar de Maizière's democratically elected East German government prior to the German reunification. Following reunification in 1990, she was elected to the Bundestag, where she has represented the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern since. She served as Federal Minister for Women and Youth 1991–1994 and as Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety 1994–1998 in Helmut Kohl's fourth and fifth cabinets. She was Secretary General of the CDU 1998–2000, and was elected chairperson in 2000. From 2002 to 2005, she was also chair of the CDU/CSU parliamentary coalition.
After her election as Chancellor following the 2005 federal election, she led a grand coalition consisting of her own CDU party, its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), until 2009. In the 2009 federal election, the CDU obtained the largest share of the votes, and formed a coalition government with the CSU and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP).[3]
In 2007, Merkel was President of the European Council and chaired the G8, the second woman (after Margaret Thatcher) to do so. She played a central role in the negotiation of the Treaty of Lisbon and the Berlin Declaration. One of her priorities was also to strengthen transatlantic economic relations by signing the agreement for the Transatlantic Economic Council on 30 April 2007. Merkel is seen as playing a crucial role in managing the financial crisis at the European and international level, and has been referred to as "the decider."[4] In domestic policy, health care reform and problems concerning future energy development have been major issues of her tenure.
Angela Merkel has for several years been described as the world’s most powerful woman and as "the de facto leader of the European Union".[5][6]
Contents |
Early life[link]
Merkel was born Angela Dorothea Kasner in Hamburg, West Germany, the daughter of Horst Kasner (1926–2011),[7] native of Berlin, and his wife, Herlind (born 1928 in Danzig, as Herlind Jentzsch), a teacher of English and Latin. Her mother was once a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany.[8] In an interview with Der Spiegel in 2000, Merkel stated that she was one quarter Polish.[9] The Preußische Allgemeine Zeitung, attempting to establish if this referred to her grandparents on her mother's side, Willi Jentzsch and Gertrud Drange, reported that, according to their researches, they were both of German descent and lived in Danzig where Willi Jentzsch was a Gymnasium teacher.[10] She has a brother, Marcus (born 7 July 1957), and a sister, Irene (born 19 August 1964).
Merkel's father studied theology in Heidelberg and, afterwards, in Hamburg. In 1954 her father received a pastorate at the church in Quitzow (near Perleberg in Brandenburg), which then was in East Germany, and the family moved to Templin. Thus Merkel grew up in the countryside 80 km (50 mi) north of Berlin. Gerd Langguth, a former senior member of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, states in his book[11] that the family's ability to travel freely from East to West Germany during the following years, as well as their possession of two automobiles, leads to the conclusion that Merkel's father had a "sympathetic" relationship with the communist regime, since such freedom and perquisites for a Christian pastor and his family would have been otherwise impossible in East Germany.
Like most pupils, Merkel was a member of the official, Socialist-led youth movement Free German Youth (FDJ). However, she did not take part in the secular coming of age ceremony Jugendweihe, which was common in East Germany, and was confirmed instead. Later, at the Academy of Sciences, she became a member of the FDJ district board and secretary for "Agitprop" (Agitation and Propaganda). Merkel herself claimed that she was secretary for culture. When Merkel's onetime FDJ district chairman contradicted her, she insisted that: "According to my memory, I was secretary for culture. But what do I know? I believe I won't know anything when I'm 80."[12] Merkel's progress in the compulsory Marxism-Leninism course was graded only genügend (sufficient, passing grade) in 1983 and 1986.[13]
At school, she learned to speak Russian fluently, and was awarded prizes for her proficiency in Russian and Mathematics.[14] Merkel was educated in Templin and at the University of Leipzig, where she studied physics from 1973 to 1978. While a student, she participated in the reconstruction of the ruin of the Moritzbastei, a project students initiated to create their own club and recreation facility on campus. Such an initiative was unprecedented in the GDR of that period, and initially resisted by the University of Leipzig. However, with backing of the local leadership of the SED party, the project was allowed to proceed.[15] Merkel worked and studied at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin-Adlershof from 1978 to 1990. After being awarded a doctorate (Dr. rer. nat.) for her thesis on quantum chemistry,[16] she worked as a researcher and published several papers.
In 1989, Merkel got involved in the growing democracy movement after the fall of the Berlin Wall, joining the new party Democratic Awakening. Following the first (and only) democratic election of the East German state, she became the deputy spokesperson of the new pre-unification caretaker government under Lothar de Maizière.[17]
Member of Bundestag and cabinet minister[link]
At the first post-reunification general election in December 1990, she was elected to the Bundestag from the constituency Stralsund – Nordvorpommern – Rügen, which is coextensive with the district of Vorpommern-Rügen. This has remained her electoral district until today. Her party merged with the west German CDU[18] and she became Minister for Women and Youth in Helmut Kohl's 3rd cabinet. In 1994, she was made Minister for the Environment and Nuclear Safety, which gave her greater political visibility and a platform on which to build her political career. As one of Kohl's protégées and his youngest cabinet minister, she was referred to by Kohl as "mein Mädchen" ("my girl").[19]
Leader of the opposition[link]
When the Kohl government was defeated in the 1998 general election, Merkel was named Secretary-General of the CDU. In this position, Merkel oversaw a string of Christian Democrat election victories in six out of seven state elections in 1999 alone, breaking the SPD-Green coalition's hold on the Bundesrat, the legislative body representing the states. Following a party financing scandal, which compromised many leading figures of the CDU (most notably Kohl himself, who refused to reveal the donor of DM 2,000,000 claiming he had given his word of honour and the then party chairman Wolfgang Schäuble, Kohl's hand-picked successor, who wasn't cooperative either), Merkel criticized her former mentor, Kohl, and advocated a fresh start for the party without him. She was elected to replace Schäuble, becoming the first female chair of her party, on 10 April 2000. Her election surprised many observers, as her personality offered a contrast to the party she had been chosen to lead; Merkel is a Protestant, originating from predominantly Protestant northern Germany, while the CDU is a male-dominated, socially conservative party with strongholds in western and southern Germany, and the Bavarian sister party, the CSU, has deep Catholic roots.
Following Merkel's election as CDU leader, she enjoyed considerable popularity among the German population and was favoured by many Germans to become Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's challenger in the 2002 election. However, she did not receive enough support in her own party and particularly its sister party (the Bavarian Christian Social Union, or CSU), and was subsequently out-manoeuvred politically by CSU leader Edmund Stoiber, to whom she eventually ceded the privilege of challenging Schröder; however, he squandered a large lead in the opinion polls to lose the election by a razor-thin margin. After Stoiber's defeat in 2002, in addition to her role as CDU chairwoman, Merkel became leader of the conservative opposition in the lower house of the German parliament, the Bundestag. Her rival, Friedrich Merz, who had held the post of parliamentary leader prior to the 2002 election, was eased out to make way for Merkel.[citation needed]
Merkel supported a substantial reform agenda concerning Germany's economic and social system and was considered to be more pro-market than her own party (the CDU); she advocated changes to German labour law, specifically removing barriers to laying off employees and increasing the allowed number of work hours in a week, arguing that existing laws made the country less competitive because companies cannot easily control labour costs at times when business is slow.[20]
Merkel argued for Germany's nuclear power to be phased out less quickly than the Schröder administration had planned.[21]
Merkel advocated a strong transatlantic partnership and German-American friendship. In the spring of 2003, defying strong public opposition, Merkel came out in favour of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, describing it as "unavoidable" and accusing Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of anti-Americanism. She criticised the government's support for the accession of Turkey to the European Union and favoured a "privileged partnership" instead. In doing so, she reflected public opinion that grew more hostile toward Turkish membership of the European Union.[22]
Path to election[link]
On 30 May 2005, Merkel won the CDU/CSU nomination as challenger to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of the SPD in the 2005 national elections. Her party began the campaign with a 21 point lead over the SPD in national opinion polls, although her personal popularity lagged behind that of the incumbent. However, the CDU/CSU campaign suffered[citation needed] when Merkel, having made economic competence central to the CDU's platform, confused gross and net income twice during a televised debate. She regained some momentum after she announced that she would appoint Paul Kirchhof, a former judge at the German Constitutional Court and leading fiscal policy expert, as Minister of Finance.[citation needed]
Merkel and the CDU lost ground after Kirchhof proposed the introduction of a flat tax in Germany, again undermining the party's broad appeal on economic affairs and convincing many voters that the CDU's platform of deregulation was designed to benefit only the rich. This was compounded by Merkel proposing to increase VAT to reduce Germany's deficit and fill the gap in revenue from a flat tax. The SPD were able to increase their support simply by pledging not to introduce flat taxes or increase VAT. Although Merkel's standing recovered after she distanced herself from Kirchhof's proposals, she remained considerably less popular than Schröder, and the CDU's lead was down to 9% on the eve of the election.
On 18 September 2005, Merkel's CDU/CSU and Schröder's SPD went head-to-head in the national elections, with the CDU/CSU winning 35.3% (CDU 27.8%/CSU 7.5%) of the second votes to the SPD's 34.2%. Neither the SPD-Green coalition nor the CDU/CSU and its preferred coalition partners, the Free Democratic Party, held enough seats to form a majority in the Bundestag, and both Schröder and Merkel claimed victory. A grand coalition between the CDU/CSU and SPD faced the challenge that both parties demanded the chancellorship. However, after three weeks of negotiations, the two parties reached a deal whereby Merkel would become Chancellor and the SPD would hold 8 of the 16 seats in the cabinet.[23][24] The coalition deal was approved by both parties at party conferences on 14 November 2005.[25] Merkel was elected Chancellor by the majority of delegates (397 to 217) in the newly assembled Bundestag on 22 November 2005, but 51 members of the governing coalition voted against her.[26]
Reports had indicated that the grand coalition would pursue a mix of policies, some of which differ from Merkel's political platform as leader of the opposition and candidate for Chancellor. The coalition's intent was to cut public spending whilst increasing VAT (from 16 to 19%), social insurance contributions and the top rate of income tax.[27]
Merkel had stated that the main aim of her government would be to reduce unemployment, and that it is this issue on which her government will be judged.[28]
Chancellor of Germany[link]
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On 22 November 2005, Merkel assumed the office of Chancellor of Germany following a stalemate election that resulted in a grand coalition with the SPD. She was re-elected in 2009 with a larger majority and was able to form a governing coalition with the FDP.
Foreign policy[link]
On 25 September 2007, Merkel met the 14th Dalai Lama for "private and informal talks" in Berlin in the Chancellery amid protest from China. China afterwards cancelled separate talks with German officials, including talks with Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries.[29]
One of her priorities was to strengthen transatlantic economic relations by signing at the White House the agreement for the Transatlantic Economic Council on 30 April 2007. The Council is co-chaired by an EU and US official, and aims at removing barriers to trade in a further integrated transatlantic free trade area[30]. This project has been described as ultra-liberal by the socialist and french politician Jean-Luc Melenchon, who fear a transfer of sovereignty from citizens to multinationals and an alignment of the European Union on the american foreign policy and institutions[31][32].
Der Spiegel reported that tensions between Chancellor Merkel and U.S. President Barack Obama[33] were eased during a meeting between the two leaders in June 2009. Commenting on a White House Press Conference held after the meeting, Spiegel stated, "Of course the rather more reserved chancellor couldn't really keep up with [Obama's]...charm offensive," but to reciprocate for Obama's "good natured" diplomacy, "she gave it a go...by mentioning the experiences of Obama's sister in Heidelberg, making it clear that she had read his autobiography".[34]
Russia[link]
In 2006 Merkel expressed concern for overreliance on Russian energy, but she received little support from others in Berlin.[35]
Iran[link]
According to the news agency Mehr (as reported in the Mail & Guardian Online and Deutsche Welle, quoting AFP), in August 2006, Merkel received a letter from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran.[36][37] According to the reports, Merkel said that the letter contained "unacceptable" criticism of Israel and "put in question" the Jewish state's right to exist, and that therefore she would not formally respond to the letter.
Israel[link]
On 16 March 2008, Merkel arrived in Israel to mark the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state. She was greeted at the airport by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, an honor guard and many of the country's political and religious leaders, including most of the Israeli Cabinet.[38] Until then, US President George W. Bush had been the only world leader Olmert had bestowed with the honor of greeting at the airport.[39][40] Merkel spoke before Israel's parliament, the only foreigner who was not a head of state to have done so,[41] although this provoked rumbles of opposition from Israeli MPs on the far right.[42] At the time, Merkel was also both the President of the European Council and the chair of the G8. Merkel has supported Israeli diplomatic initiatives, opposing the Palestinian bid for membership at the UN. However, Merkel was offended when settlement building continued beyond the Green Line,[43] and felt personally betrayed by the Israeli government's behavior. [44]
Liquidity crisis[link]
Following major falls in worldwide stock markets in September 2008, the German government stepped in to assist the mortgage company Hypo Real Estate with a bailout which was agreed on October 6, with German banks to contribute €30 billion and the Bundesbank €20 billion to a credit line.[45]
On 4 October 2008, a Saturday, following the Irish Government's decision to guarantee all deposits in private savings accounts, a move she strongly criticized,[46] Merkel said there were no plans for the German Government to do the same. The following day, Merkel stated that the government would guarantee private savings account deposits, after all.[47] However, two days later, on 6 October 2008, it emerged that the pledge was simply a political move that would not be backed by legislation.[48] Other European governments eventually either raised the limits or promised to guarantee savings in full.[48]
India[link]
In 2011,[49] India became the first Asian country to hold a joint cabinet meeting with Germany when Merkel visited.[49]
Failure of multiculturalism[link]
In October 2010 Merkel told a meeting of younger members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party at Potsdam that attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany had "utterly failed",[50] stating: "The concept that we are now living side by side and are happy about it does not work"[51] and that "we feel attached to the Christian concept of mankind, that is what defines us. Anyone who doesn't accept that is in the wrong place here."[52] She continued to say that immigrants should integrate and adopt Germany's culture and values. This has added to a growing debate within Germany[53] on the levels of immigration, its effect on Germany and the degree to which Muslim immigrants have integrated into German society.
Approval[link]
Midway through her second term, Merkel's approval plummeted in the country, resulting in heavy losses in state elections for her party.[54] A poll in August 2011 found her coalition with only 36% support compared to a rival coalition which had 51%.[55] However, she scored well on her handling of the recent euro crisis (69% rated her performance as good rather than poor), and her approval rating reached an all-time high of 77% in February 2012.[56]
Cabinets[link]
The first cabinet of Angela Merkel was sworn in at 16:00 CET, on 22 November 2005.
On 31 October 2005, after the defeat of his favoured candidate for the position of Secretary General of the SPD, Franz Müntefering indicated that he would resign as Chairman of the party in November, which he did. Ostensibly responding to this, Edmund Stoiber (CSU), who was originally nominated for the Economics and Technology post, announced his withdrawal on 1 November 2005. While this was initially seen as a blow to Merkel's attempt at forming a viable coalition and cabinet, the manner in which Stoiber withdrew earned him much ridicule and severely undermined his position as a Merkel rival. Separate conferences of the CDU, CSU, and SPD approved the proposed Cabinet on 14 November 2005
The second cabinet of Angela Merkel was sworn in on 28 October 2009.[57]
Personal life[link]
In 1977, Angela Kasner married physics student Ulrich Merkel. The marriage ended in divorce in 1982.[58] Her second and current husband is quantum chemist and professor Joachim Sauer, who has largely remained out of the media spotlight. They first met in 1981,[59] became partners later and married privately on 30 December 1998.[60] She has no children, but Sauer has two adult sons from a previous marriage.[61]
Honours[link]
In 2006, Angela Merkel was awarded the Vision for Europe Award for her contribution toward greater European integration. In 2007, Merkel was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[62][63] In March 2006, the Italian President of the Republic gave the German Chancellor the recognition of Dama di Gran Croce Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana.
She received the Karlspreis (Charlemagne Prize) for 2008 for distinguished services to European unity.[64][65]
In January 2008, Merkel was awarded Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.[66] She was also awarded the honorary doctorate from Leipzig University in June 2008,[67] University of Technology in Wrocław (Poland) in September 2008[68] and Babeş-Bolyai University from Cluj-Napoca, Romania on 12 October 2010 for her historical contribution to the European unification and for her global role in renewing international cooperation.[69][70][71] In March 2008 she received the B’nai B’rith Europe Award of Merit.[72]
Merkel topped Forbes magazine's list of "The World's 100 Most Powerful Women" in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2011.[73]
New Statesman named Angela Merkel in "The World's 50 Most Influential Figures" 2010.[74]
On June 16, 2010, the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington D.C. awarded Chancellor Merkel its Global Leadership Award (AICGS) in recognition of her outstanding dedication to strengthening German-American relations.[75]
On September 21, 2010, the Leo Baeck Institute, a research institution in New York City devoted to the history of German-speaking Jewry, awarded Angela Merkel the Leo Baeck Medal. The medal was presented by former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and current Director of the Jewish Museum Berlin, W. Michael Blumenthal, who cited Merkel's support of Jewish cultural life and the integration of minorities in Germany.[76]
On 15 February 2011, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from U.S. President Barack Obama.[77] The medal is presented to people who have made an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, or cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.[78]
On 31 May 2011, she received the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for the year 2009 from the Indian government. She received the award for International understanding.[79]
Comparisons[link]
As a female politician from a centre right party who is also a scientist, Merkel has been compared by many in the English-language press to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Some have referred to her as "Iron Lady", "Iron Girl", and even "The Iron Frau" (all alluding to Thatcher, whose nickname was "The Iron Lady"—Thatcher also has a science degree: an Oxford University degree in chemistry). Political commentators have debated the precise extent to which their agendas are similar.[80] Later in her tenure, Merkel acquired the nickname "Mutti" (a familiar form of 'mother'), said by Der Spiegel to refer to an idealised mother figure from the 1950s and 1960s.[81]
In addition to being the first female German chancellor, the first to represent a Federal Republic of Germany that included the former East Germany (though she was born in the West and moved to the East a few weeks after her birth, when her father decided to return to East Germany as a Lutheran pastor[82]), and the youngest German chancellor since the Second World War, Merkel is also the first born after World War II, and the first chancellor of the Federal Republic with a background in natural sciences. She studied physics; her predecessors studied law, business or history or were military officers, among others.
Forbes has named her the fourth most powerful person in the world as of 2011.[83]
Controversy[link]
Merkel has been criticised for being personally present and involved at the M100 Media Award handover[84] to Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard. This happened at a time of fierce emotional debate in Germany over disparaging remarks about Muslim immigrants made by the former Deutsche Bundesbank executive Thilo Sarrazin.[85] The Zentralrat der Muslime[86][87] and the left party[88] (Die Linke) as well as the German Green Party[89][90] criticised the action by the centre-right chancellor. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper wrote: "This will probably be the most explosive appointment of her chancellorship so far."[91] Others have praised Merkel and called it a brave and bold move for the cause of freedom of speech.
In September 2010, concerning a debate on integration, Merkel said to the Frankfurter Allgemeine that "Germans will see more mosques".[92] In October 2010, following a speech by the President of the Federal Republic of Germany Christian Wulff during the German reunification day, she stated that "Islam is part of Germany".[93]
Members of her cabinet and Merkel herself also support the idea of, and are already introducing, Islamic education and classes in schools.[94][95][96][97]
References[link]
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- ^ "Joachim Sauer, das Phantom an Merkels Seite" (in German). Die Zeit. 2009-08-14. http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article4321502/Joachim-Sauer-das-Phantom-an-Merkels-Seite.html. Retrieved 2010-06-11.
- ^ "Das diskrete Glück" (in German). Bild. 2008-12-28. http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/politik/2008/12/28/angela-merkel/bild-am-sonntag-erzaehlt-die-geschichte-einer-liebe-ohne-prunk-und-blitzlicht.html. Retrieved 2010-06-11.
- ^ Font size Print E-mail Share Page 1 of 2 By James M Klatell (2006-08-09). "Germany's First Fella, Angela Merkel Is Germany's Chancellor; But Her Husband Stays Out Of The Spotlight". CBS News. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/09/world/main1879305.shtml. Retrieved 2010-03-02.
- ^ American Friends of the Hebrew University[dead link]
- ^ "Honorary Doctorates – The Hebrew University of Jerusalem". .huji.ac.il. http://www3.huji.ac.il/htbin/hon_doc/doc_search.pl. Retrieved 2010-03-02.
- ^ "Charlemagne Prize 2008: Angela Merkel". Aachen.de. http://www.aachen.de/EN/sb/pr_az/karls_pr/99einstieg_karlspreis.html. Retrieved 2010-03-02.
- ^ Karlspreis.de (German)
- ^ "Bundesverdienstkreuz für Merkel". tagesschau.de. http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/merkelgrosskreuz2.html. Retrieved 2010-03-02. [dead link]
- ^ "Pressemitteilung 2008/106 der Universität Leipzig" (in German). Universität Leipzig. 2008-05-20. http://db.uni-leipzig.de/aktuell/index.php?modus=pmanzeige&pm_id=3032. Retrieved 2010-03-02.
- ^ "Doktorat honoris causa dla Merkel,Rzeczpospolita" (in (Polish)). Rp.pl. 2008-09-24. http://www.rp.pl/artykul/195272_Doktorat_honoris_causa_dla_Merkel.html. Retrieved 2010-03-02.
- ^ Universitatea Babes-Bolyai. Web.ubbcluj.ro. Retrieved on 2011-04-18.
- ^ Angela Merkel a primit titlul de Doctor Honoris Causa al Universităţii Babeş-Bolyai. Realitatea .Net (2010-10-12). Retrieved on 2011-04-18.
- ^ Cancelarul Germaniei, Angela Merkel, a primit titlul de Doctor Honoris Causa al UBB Cluj | Romania Libera. Romanialibera.ro. Retrieved on 2011-04-18.
- ^ John P. Reeves. "B'nai B'rith Europe grants Award of Merit to DR. Angela MERKEL". B'nai B'rith Europe. http://www.bnaibritheurope.org/bbe/content/view/596/121/lang,en_GB/. ". . . Dr Angela Merkel Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany was the recipient of a Gold Medal for outstanding services, the B’nai B’rith Europe Award of Merit, being the highest accolade of BBEurope"
- ^ Serafin, Tatiana (2006-08-31). "The 100 Most Powerful Women: #1 Angela Merkel". Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/11/06women_Angela-Merkel_34AH.html. Retrieved 2009-05-01.
Serafin, Tatiana (2007-08-30). "The 100 Most Powerful Women: #1 Angela Merkel". Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/11/biz-07women_Angela-Merkel_34AH.html. Retrieved 2009-05-17.
Serafin, Tatiana (2008-08-27). "The 100 Most Powerful Women: #1 Angela Merkel". Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/lists/2008/11/biz_powerwomen08_Angela-Merkel_34AH.html. Retrieved 2009-05-17.
Serafin, Tatiana (2009-08-19). "The 100 Most Powerful Women: #1 Angela Merkel". Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/11/power-women-09_Angela-Merkel_34AH.html. Retrieved 2009-08-20.
"Merkel most powerful woman in world: Forbes". Euronews. 2011-08-26. http://www.euronews.net/2011/08/26/merkel-most-powerful-woman-in-world-forbes/. Retrieved 2011-12-19. - ^ "Angela Merkel – 50 People Who Matter 2010". http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2010/09/iron-frau-angela-merkel-greek. Retrieved 29 September 2010.
- ^ "Chancellor Angela Merkel Receives Global Leadership Award"[dead link]
- ^ Baeck, Leo. (2010-08-22) LBI Presents Leo Baeck Medal to Chancellor Angela Merkel | Leo Baeck Institute, New York. Leobaeckinstitute.wordpress.com. Retrieved on 2011-04-18.
- ^ Russell among 15 Presidential Medal of Freedom honorees. NBA.com (2010-11-18). Retrieved on 2011-04-18.
- ^ "Executive Order 11085". Wikisource. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_11085. Retrieved 2011-04-01. "The Medal may be awarded by the President as provided in this order to any person who has made an especially meritorious contribution to (1), the security or national interests of the United States, or (2) world peace, or (3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."
- ^ "Angela Merkel Receives Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding". ABC live. 2011-06-01. http://abclive.in/national/national/478-angela-merkel-jawaharlal-nehru-award-.html. Retrieved 2011-11-16.
- ^ Risen, Clay (July 5, 2005). "Is Angela Merkel the next Maggie Thatcher?". Slate (Slate (magazine)). http://www.slate.com/id/2122001/
- ^ Kurbjuweit, Dirk (11 March 2009). "Merkel's Dream of a Place in the History Books". Spiegel Online International. http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,659018,00.html.
- ^ Langguth, Gerd (August 2005) (in German). Angela Merkel. Munich: DTV. p. 10. ISBN 3-423-24485-2.
- ^ "The World's Most Powerful People". Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/powerful-people/list/. Retrieved 2012-01-04.
- ^ "Merkel honours Mohammad cartoonist at press award". Reuters. 2010-09-08. http://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-51367120100908.
- ^ The Sarrazin Debate: Germany Is Becoming Islamophobic. Spiegel.de. Retrieved on 2011-04-18.
- ^ BBC: Germany's Central Muslim Council (Zentralrat der Muslime in Deutschland) criticised Mrs. Merkel for attending the award ceremony.8 September 2010. A ZMD spokesman, Aiman Mazyek, told public broadcaster Deutschlandradio that the Chancellor was honouring someone "who in our eyes kicked our prophet, and therefore kicked all Muslims". He said giving Mr Westergaard the prize in a "highly charged and heated time" was "highly problematic".
- ^ "Merkel honours Danish Muhammad cartoonist Westergaard". BBC News. 2010-09-08. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11236158.
- ^ DIE LINKE: Merkels Affront gegen Muslime. Die-linke.de. Retrieved on 2011-04-18.
- ^ Grüne/Bündnis 90 Spokesman Renate Künast: "I wouldn't have done it," said Green Party floor leader Renate Künast. It was true that the right to freedom of expression also applies to cartoons, she said. "But if a chancellor also makes a speech on top of that, it serves to heat up the debate."
- ^ Award for Danish Muhammad Cartoonist: Merkel Defends Press Freedom, Condemns Koran-Burning. Spiegel.de. Retrieved on 2011-04-18.
- ^ Ehrung des Mohammed-Karikaturisten: Angela Merkels Risiko – Integration – Feuilleton. Faz.Net (2010-09-08). Retrieved on 2011-04-18.
- ^ (German) Islam: Merkel – Deutsche werden mehr Moscheen sehen – Nachrichten Politik – Deutschland – WELT ONLINE. Welt.de (2010-09-18). Retrieved on 2011-04-18.
- ^ (German) Merkel gegen Seehofer: "Der Islam ist Teil Deutschlands". n-tv.de. Retrieved on 2011-04-18.
- ^ REGIERUNGonline – Islamunterricht an Schulen. Bundesregierung.de (2009-05-17). Retrieved on 2011-04-18.
- ^ (German) Islam-Unterricht | Aktuelle News, Hintergründe und Bilder auf. Stern.de. Retrieved on 2011-04-18.
- ^ (German) Bundesregierung: De Maizière dringt auf Islam-Unterricht an Schulen – Nachrichten Politik – Deutschland – WELT ONLINE. Welt.de. Retrieved on 2011-04-18.
- ^ Integration: Schäuble und Muslime planen Islam-Unterricht an deutschen Schulen. Spiegel.de. Retrieved on 2011-04-18.
Bibliography[link]
- Bolgherini, Silvia; Grotz, Florian, eds. (2010). Germany After the Grand Coalition: Governance and Politics in a Turbulent Environment. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-62285-2. Studies of the "Grand Coalition" of 2005–09 and the first Merkel government.
- Mills, Cliff (2008). Angela Merkel. New York: Chelsea House. ISBN 978-0-7910-9496-9.
External links[link]
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| Political offices | ||
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Minister of Women and Youth 1991–1994 |
Succeeded by Claudia Nolte |
| Preceded by Klaus Töpfer |
Minister of the Environment and Reactor Safety 1994–1998 |
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| Preceded by Gerhard Schröder |
Chancellor of Germany 2005–present |
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President of the European Council 2007 |
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| Party political offices | ||
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| Diplomatic posts | ||
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| Persondata | |
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| Name | Merkel, Angela |
| Alternative names | Merkel, Angela Dorothea (full name) |
| Short description | German politician |
| Date of birth | 17 July 1954 |
| Place of birth | Hamburg, Germany |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
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"Hitler" redirects here. For other uses, see Hitler (disambiguation).
| Adolf Hitler | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Hitler in 1937 | |
| Führer of Germany | |
| In office 2 August 1934 – 30 April 1945 |
|
| Preceded by | Paul von Hindenburg (as President) |
| Succeeded by | Karl Dönitz (as President) |
| Chancellor of Germany | |
| In office 30 January 1933 – 30 April 1945 |
|
| President | Paul von Hindenburg |
| Deputy |
|
| Preceded by | Kurt von Schleicher |
| Succeeded by | Joseph Goebbels |
| Reichsstatthalter of Prussia | |
| In office 30 January 1933 – 30 January 1935 |
|
| Prime Minister | |
| Preceded by | Office created |
| Succeeded by | Office abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1889-04-20)20 April 1889 Braunau am Inn, Austria–Hungary |
| Died | 30 April 1945(1945-04-30) (aged 56) Berlin, Germany |
| Nationality |
|
| Political party | National Socialist German Workers' Party (1921–1945) |
| Other political affiliations |
German Workers' Party (1920–1921) |
| Spouse(s) | Eva Braun (29–30 April 1945) |
| Occupation | Politician, soldier, artist, writer |
| Religion | See Adolf Hitler's religious views |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  German Empire |
| Service/branch |  Reichsheer |
| Years of service | 1914–1918 |
| Rank | Gefreiter |
| Unit | 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment |
| Battles/wars | World War I |
| Awards |
|
Adolf Hitler (German: [ˈadɔlf ˈhɪtlɐ] ( listen); 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and dictator of Nazi Germany (as Führer und Reichskanzler) from 1934 to 1945. Hitler is 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 German Workers' Party, precursor of the Nazi Party, in 1919, and became leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted a coup d'état, known as the Beer Hall Putsch, 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 popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, antisemitism, and anticommunism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. After his appointment as chancellor in 1933, he transformed the Weimar Republic into the Third Reich, a single-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of Nazism. His aim was to establish a New Order of absolute Nazi German hegemony in continental Europe.
Hitler's foreign and domestic policies had the goal of seizing Lebensraum ("living space") for the Germanic people. He directed the rearmament of Germany and the invasion of Poland by the Wehrmacht in September 1939, leading to the outbreak of World War II in Europe. Under Hitler's rule, in 1941 German forces and their European allies occupied most of Europe and North Africa. These gains were gradually reversed, and in 1945 the Allied armies defeated the German army. Hitler's supremacist and racially motivated policies resulted in the systematic murder of eleven million people, including nearly six million Jews.
In the final days of the war, during the Battle of Berlin in 1945, Hitler married his long-time mistress, Eva Braun. On 30 April 1945, less than two days later, the two committed suicide to avoid capture by the Red Army, and their corpses were burned.
Contents |
Early years[link]
Ancestry[link]
Hitler's father, Alois Hitler (1837–1903), was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. Alois's birth certificate did not name the father, so the child bore his mother's surname. In 1842 Johann Georg Hiedler married Anna. After she died in 1847 and he in 1856, Alois was brought up in the family of Hiedler's brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler.[2] It was not until 1876 that Alois was legitimated and the baptismal register changed by a priest before three witnesses.[3] While awaiting trial at Nuremberg in 1945, Nazi official Hans Frank suggested the existence of letters claiming 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.[4] However, no Frankenberger, Jewish or otherwise, was registered in Graz during that period.[5] Historians doubt the claim that Alois' father was Jewish.[6][7]
At age 39, Alois assumed the surname "Hitler", also spelled as "Hiedler", "Hüttler", or "Huettler". 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 words Hidlar and Hidlarcek.[8]
Childhood[link]
Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 at the Gasthof zum Pommer, an inn in Ranshofen,[9] a village annexed in 1938 to the municipality of Braunau am Inn, Austria-Hungary. He was the fourth of six children to Alois Hitler and Klara Pölzl (1860–1907). Adolf's older siblings – Gustav, Ida, and Otto – died in infancy.[10] When Hitler was three, the family moved to Passau, Germany.[11] There he acquired the distinctive lower Bavarian dialect, rather than Austrian German, which marked his speech all of his life.[12][13][14] 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. Hitler became fixated on warfare after finding a picture book about the Franco-Prussian War among his father's belongings.[15][16]
The move to Hafeld coincided with the onset of intense father-son conflicts caused by Adolf's refusal to conform to the strict discipline of his school.[17] 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 pulpit of which bore a stylized swastika symbol on the coat of arms of Theodorich von Hagen, a former abbot.[18] The eight-year-old Hitler took singing lessons, sang in the church choir, and even entertained thoughts of becoming a priest.[19] In 1898 the family returned permanently to Leonding. The death of his younger brother, Edmund, from measles on 2 February 1900 deeply affected Hitler. He changed from being confident and outgoing and an excellent student, to a morose, detached, and sullen boy who constantly fought with his father and teachers.[20]
Alois had made a successful career in the customs bureau and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps.[21] Hitler later dramatised an episode from this period when his father took him to visit a customs office, depicting it as an event that gave rise to an unforgiving antagonism between father and son, who were both strong-willed.[22][23][24] Ignoring his son's desire to attend a classical high school and become an artist, in September 1900 Alois sent Adolf to the Realschule in Linz.[25] (This was the same high school that Adolf Eichmann would attend some 17 years later.)[26] Hitler rebelled against this decision, and in Mein Kampf revealed that he did poorly in school, hoping that once his father saw "what little progress I was making at the technical school he would let me devote myself to my dream."[27]
Hitler became obsessed with German nationalism from a young age.[28] He expressed loyalty only to Germany, despising the declining Habsburg Monarchy and its rule over an ethnically-variegated empire.[29][30] Hitler and his friends used the German greeting "Heil", and sang the German anthem "Deutschland Über Alles" instead of the Austrian Imperial anthem.[31]
After Alois' sudden death on 3 January 1903, Hitler's performance at school deteriorated. His mother allowed him to quit in autumn 1905.[32] He enrolled at the Realschule in Steyr in September 1904; his behaviour and performance showed some slight and gradual improvement.[33] In the autumn of 1905, after passing a repeat and the final exam, Hitler left the school without showing any ambitions for further schooling or clear plans for a career.[34]
Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich[link]
File:The Courtyard of the Old Residency in Munich - Adolf Hitler.jpg
The Alter Hof in Munich. Watercolour by Adolf Hitler, 1914
From 1905, Hitler lived a bohemian life in Vienna, financed by orphan's benefits and support from his mother. He worked as a casual labourer and eventually as a painter, selling watercolours. The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna rejected him twice, in 1907 and 1908, because of his "unfitness for painting". The director recommended that Hitler study architecture,[35] but he lacked the academic credentials.[36] On 21 December 1907, his mother died aged 47. After the Academy's second rejection, Hitler ran out of money. In 1909 he lived in a homeless shelter, and by 1910, he had settled into a house for poor working men on Meldemannstraße.[37] At the time Hitler lived there, Vienna was a hotbed of religious prejudice and 19th-century racism.[38] Fears of being overrun by immigrants from the East were widespread, and the populist mayor, Karl Lueger, exploited the rhetoric of virulent antisemitism for political effect. Georg Schönerer's pan-Germanic antisemitism had a strong following and base in the Mariahilf district, where Hitler lived.[39] Hitler read local newspapers, such as the Deutsches Volksblatt, that fanned prejudice and played on Christian fears of being swamped by an influx of eastern Jews.[40] Hostile to what he saw as Catholic "Germanophobia", he developed an admiration for Martin Luther.[41]
The origin and first expression of Hitler's antisemitism have been difficult to locate.[42] Hitler states in Mein Kampf that he first became an antisemite in Vienna.[43] His close friend, August Kubizek, claimed that Hitler was a "confirmed antisemite" before he left Linz.[44] Kubizek's account has been challenged by historian Brigitte Hamann, who writes that Kubizek is the only person to have said that the young Hitler was an antisemite.[45] Hamann also notes that no antisemitic remark has been documented from Hitler during this period.[46] Historian Ian Kershaw suggests that if Hitler had made such remarks, they may have gone unnoticed because of the prevailing antisemitism in Vienna at that time.[47] Several sources provide strong evidence that Hitler had Jewish friends in his hostel and in other places in Vienna.[48][49] Historian Richard J. Evans states that "historians now generally agree that his notorious, murderous anti-Semitism emerged well after Germany’s defeat [in World War I], as a product of the paranoid 'stab-in-the-back' explanation for the catastrophe".[50]
Hitler received the final part of his father's estate in May 1913 and moved to Munich.[51] Historians believe he left Vienna to evade conscription into the Austrian army.[52] Hitler later claimed that he did not wish to serve the Habsburg Empire because of the mixture of "races" in its army.[51] After he was deemed unfit for service—he failed his physical exam in Salzburg on 5 February 1914—he returned to Munich.[53]
World War I[link]
Main article: Military career of Adolf Hitler
At the outbreak of World War I, Hitler applied to serve in the German army. He was accepted in August 1914, likely as the result of a clerical oversight—he was still an Austrian citizen.[54] Posted to the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (1st Company of the List Regiment),[55][54] he served as a dispatch runner on the Western Front in France and Belgium,[56] spending nearly half his time well behind the front lines.[57][58] He was present at the First Battle of Ypres, the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras, and the Battle of Passchendaele, and was wounded at the Somme.[59]
He was decorated for bravery, receiving the Iron Cross, Second Class, in 1914.[59] Recommended by Hugo Gutmann, he received the Iron Cross, First Class, on 4 August 1918,[60] a decoration rarely awarded to one of Hitler's rank (Gefreiter). Hitler's post at regimental headquarters, providing frequent interactions with senior officers, may have helped him receive this decoration.[61] Though his rewarded actions may have been courageous, they were probably not highly exceptional.[62] He also received the Black Wound Badge on 18 May 1918.[63]
During his service at the headquarters, Hitler pursued his artwork, drawing cartoons and instructions for an army newspaper. During the Battle of the Somme in October 1916, he was wounded either in the groin area[64] or the left thigh by a shell that had exploded in the dispatch runners' dugout.[65] Hitler spent almost two months in the Red Cross hospital at Beelitz, returning to his regiment on 5 March 1917.[66] On 15 October 1918, he was temporarily blinded by a mustard gas attack and was hospitalised in Pasewalk.[67] While there, Hitler learnt of Germany's defeat,[68] and—by his own account—on receiving this news, he suffered a second bout of blindness.[69]
Hitler became embittered over the collapse of the war effort, and his ideological development began to firmly take shape.[70] He described the war as "the greatest of all experiences", and was praised by his commanding officers for his bravery.[71] The experience reinforced his passionate German patriotism and he was shocked by Germany's capitulation in November 1918.[72] Like other German nationalists, he believed in the Dolchstoßlegende (Stab-in-the-back legend), which claimed that the German army, "undefeated in the field," had been "stabbed in the back" on the home front by civilian leaders and Marxists, later dubbed the "November criminals".[73]
The Treaty of Versailles stipulated that Germany must relinquish several of its territories and demilitarise the Rhineland. The treaty imposed economic sanctions and levied heavy reparations on the country. Many Germans perceived the treaty—especially Article 231, which declared Germany responsible for the war—as a humiliation.[74] The Versailles Treaty and the economic, social, and political conditions in Germany after the war were later exploited by Hitler for political gains.[75]
Entry into politics[link]
Main article: Adolf Hitler's political views
After World War I Hitler returned to Munich.[76] Having no formal education and career plans or prospects, he tried to remain in the army for as long as possible.[77] In July 1919 he was appointed Verbindungsmann (intelligence agent) of an Aufklärungskommando (reconnaissance commando) of the Reichswehr, to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate the German Workers' Party (DAP). While monitoring the activities of the DAP, Hitler became attracted to the founder Anton Drexler's antisemitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist, and anti-Marxist ideas.[78] Drexler favoured a strong active government, a "non-Jewish" version of socialism, and solidarity among all members of society. Impressed with Hitler's oratory skills, Drexler invited him to join the DAP. Hitler accepted on 12 September 1919,[79] becoming the party's 55th member.[80]
At the DAP, Hitler met Dietrich Eckart, one of its early founders and a member of the occult Thule Society.[81] Eckart became Hitler's mentor, exchanging ideas with him and introducing him to a wide range of people in Munich society.[82] To increase its appeal, the DAP changed its name to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party – NSDAP).[83] Hitler designed the party's banner of a swastika in a white circle on a red background.[84]
Hitler was discharged from the army in March 1920 and began working full time for the NSDAP. In February 1921—already highly effective at speaking to large audiences—he spoke to a crowd of over 6,000 in Munich.[85] To publicise the meeting, two truckloads of party supporters drove around town waving swastika flags and throwing leaflets. Hitler soon gained notoriety for his rowdy, polemic speeches against the Treaty of Versailles, rival politicians, and especially against Marxists and Jews.[86] At the time, the NSDAP was centred in Munich, a major hotbed of anti-government German nationalists determined to crush Marxism and undermine the Weimar Republic.[87]
In June 1921, while Hitler and Eckart were on a fundraising trip to Berlin, a mutiny broke out within the NSDAP in Munich. Members of the its executive committee, some of whom considered Hitler to be too overbearing, wanted to merge with the rival German Socialist Party (DSP).[88] Hitler returned to Munich on 11 July 1921 and angrily tendered his resignation. The committee members realised that his resignation would mean the end of the party.[89] Hitler announced he would rejoin on the condition that he would replace Drexler as party chairman, and that the party headquarters would remain in Munich.[90] The committee agreed; he rejoined the party as member 3,680. He still faced some opposition within the NSDAP: Hermann Esser and his allies printed 3,000 copies of a pamphlet attacking Hitler as a traitor to the party.[90][a] In the following days, Hitler spoke to several packed houses and defended himself, to thunderous applause. His strategy proved successful: at a general membership meeting, he was granted absolute powers as party chairman, with only one nay vote cast.[91]
Hitler's vitriolic beer hall speeches began attracting regular audiences. He became adept at using populist themes targeted at his audience, including the use of scapegoats who could be blamed for the economic hardships of his listeners.[92][93][94] Historians have noted the hypnotic effect of his rhetoric on large audiences, and of his eyes in small groups. Kessel writes, "Overwhelmingly ... Germans speak with mystification of Hitler's 'hypnotic' appeal. The word shows up again and again; Hitler is said to have mesmerized the nation, captured them in a trance from which they could not break loose."[95] Historian Hugh Trevor-Roper described "the fascination of those eyes, which had bewitched so many seemingly sober men."[96] He used his personal magnetism and an understanding of crowd psychology to his advantage while engaged in public speaking.[97][98] Alfons Heck, a former member of the Hitler Youth, describes the reaction to a speech by Hitler: "We erupted into a frenzy of nationalistic pride that bordered on hysteria. For minutes on end, we shouted at the top of our lungs, with tears streaming down our faces: Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil! From that moment on, I belonged to Adolf Hitler body and soul".[99] Although his oratory skills and personal traits were generally received well by large crowds and at official events, some who had met Hitler privately noted that his appearance and demeanour failed to make a lasting impression on them.[100][101]
Early followers included Rudolf Hess, former air force pilot Hermann Göring, and army captain Ernst Röhm. The latter became head of the Nazis' paramilitary organisation, the Sturmabteilung (SA, "Stormtroopers"), which protected meetings and frequently attacked political opponents. A critical influence on his thinking during this period was the Aufbau Vereinigung,[102] a conspiratorial group formed of White Russian exiles and early National Socialists. The group, financed with funds channelled from wealthy industrialists like Henry Ford, introduced him to the idea of a Jewish conspiracy, linking international finance with Bolshevism.[103]
Beer Hall Putsch[link]
Main article: Beer Hall Putsch
Hitler enlisted the help of World War I General Erich 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 Italian Fascism as a model for their appearance and policies. Hitler wanted to emulate Benito Mussolini's "March on Rome" (1922) by staging his own coup in Bavaria, to be followed by challenging the government in Berlin. Hitler and Ludendorff sought the 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.[104]
Hitler wanted to seize a critical moment for successful popular agitation and support.[105] On 8 November 1923 he and the SA stormed a public meeting of 3,000 people that had been organised 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.[106] Retiring to a backroom, Hitler, with handgun drawn, demanded and got the support of Kahr, Seisser, and Lossow.[106] Hitler's forces initially succeeded in occupying the local Reichswehr and police headquarters; however, Kahr and his consorts quickly withdrew their support and neither the army nor the state police joined forces with him.[107] The next day, Hitler and his followers marched from the beer hall to the Bavarian War Ministry to overthrow the Bavarian government, but police dispersed them.[108] Sixteen NSDAP members and four police officers were killed in the failed coup.[109]
Hitler fled to the home of Ernst Hanfstaengl, and by some accounts contemplated suicide.[110] He was depressed but calm when arrested on 11 November 1923 for high treason.[111] His trial began in February 1924 before the special People's Court in Munich,[112] and Alfred Rosenberg became temporary leader of the NSDAP. On 1 April Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at Landsberg Prison.[113] He received friendly treatment from the guards; he was allowed mail from supporters and regular visits by party comrades. The Bavarian Supreme Court issued a pardon and he was released from jail on 20 December 1924, against the state prosecutor's objections.[114] Including time on remand, Hitler had served just over one year in prison.[115]
While at Landsberg, Hitler 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.[115] 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".[116] The book laid out Hitler's plans for transforming German society into one based on race. Some passages implied genocide.[117] Published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926, it sold 228,000 copies between 1925 and 1932. One million copies were sold in 1933, Hitler's first year in office. [118]
Rebuilding the NSDAP[link]
File:Hitler 1928.jpg
Hitler (left), standing behind Hermann Göring at a Nazi rally in Nuremberg (c. 1928)
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. In a meeting with Prime Minister of Bavaria Heinrich Held on 4 January 1925, Hitler agreed to respect the authority of the state: he would only seek political power through the democratic process. The meeting paved the way for the ban on the NSDAP to be lifted.[119] However, Hitler was barred from public speaking, [120] a ban that remained in place until 1927.[121] To advance his political ambitions in spite of the ban, Hitler appointed Gregor Strasser, Otto Strasser, and Joseph Goebbels to organise and grow the NSDAP in northern Germany. A superb organiser, Gregor Strasser steered a more independent political course, emphasising the socialist element of the party's programme.[122]
Hitler ruled the NSDAP autocratically by asserting the Führerprinzip ("Leader principle"). Rank in the party was not determined by elections—positions were filled through appointment by those of higher rank, who demanded unquestioning obedience to the will of the leader.[123]
The stock market in the United States crashed on 24 October 1929. The impact in Germany was dire: millions were thrown out of work and several major banks collapsed. Hitler and the NSDAP prepared to take advantage of the emergency to gain support for their party. They promised to repudiate the Versailles Treaty, strengthen the economy, and provide jobs.[124]
Rise to power[link]
Main article: Adolf Hitler's rise to power
| Date | Total votes |
Votes, percentage |
Reichstag seats |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01924-05-01May 1, 1924May 1924 | &100000000019183000000001,918,300 | &100000000000000065000006.5 | &1000000000000003200000032 | Hitler in prison |
| 01924-12-01December 1, 1924December 1924 | &10000000000907300000000907,300 | &100000000000000030000003.0 | &1000000000000001400000014 | Hitler released from prison |
| 01928-05-01May 1, 1928May 1928 | &10000000000810100000000810,100 | &100000000000000026000002.6 | &1000000000000001200000012 | |
| 01930-09-01September 1, 1930September 1930 | &100000000064096000000006,409,600 | &1000000000000001830000018.3 | &10000000000000107000000107 | After the financial crisis |
| 01932-07-01July 1, 1932July 1932 | &1000000001374500000000013,745,000 | &1000000000000003729999937.3 | &10000000000000230000000230 | After Hitler was candidate for presidency |
| 01932-11-01November 1, 1932November 1932 | &1000000001173700000000011,737,000 | &1000000000000003310000033.1 | &10000000000000196000000196 | |
| 01933-03-01March 1, 1933March 1933 | &1000000001727718000000017,277,180 | &1000000000000004389999943.9 | &10000000000000288000000288 | During Hitler's term as chancellor of Germany |
Brüning administration[link]
The Great Depression in Germany provided a political opportunity for Hitler. Germans were ambivalent to the parliamentary republic, which faced strong challenges from right- and left-wing extremists. The moderate political parties were increasingly unable to stem the tide of extremism, and the German referendum of 1929 had helped to elevate Nazi ideology.[126] The elections of September 1930 resulted in the break-up of a grand coalition and its replacement with a minority cabinet. Its leader, chancellor Heinrich Brüning of the Centre Party, governed through emergency decrees from the president, Paul von Hindenburg. Governance by decree would become the new norm and paved the way for authoritarian forms of government.[127] The NSDAP rose from obscurity to win 18.3% of the vote and 107 parliamentary seats in the 1930 election, becoming the second-largest party in parliament.[128]
Hitler made a prominent appearance at the trial of two Reichswehr officers, Lieutenants Richard Scheringer and Hans Ludin, in the autumn of 1930. Both were charged with membership in the NSDAP, at that time illegal for Reichswehr personnel.[129] The prosecution argued that the NSDAP was an extremist party, prompting defence lawyer Hans Frank to call on Hitler to testify in court.[130] On 25 September 1930 Hitler testified that his party would pursue political power solely through democratic elections,[131] a testimony that won him many supporters in the officer corps.[132]
Brüning's austerity measures brought little economic improvement and were extremely unpopular.[133] Hitler exploited this by targeting his political messages specifically at people who had been affected by the inflation of the 1920s and the Depression, such as farmers, war veterans, and the middle class.[134]
Hitler had 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, unable to run for public office, and faced the risk of deportation.[135] 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,[136] and thus of Germany.[137]
In 1932 Hitler ran against 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 many of Germany's most powerful industrialists.[138] However, Hindenburg had support from various nationalist, monarchist, Catholic, and republican parties, and some social democrats. Hitler used the campaign slogan "Hitler über Deutschland" ("Hitler over Germany"), a reference to both his political ambitions and to his campaigning by aircraft.[139] 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 strong force in German politics.[140]
Appointment as chancellor[link]
The absence of an effective government prompted two influential politicians, Franz von Papen and Alfred Hugenberg, along with several other industrialists and businessmen, to write a letter to von Hindenburg. The signers urged Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as leader of a government "independent from parliamentary parties", which could turn into a movement that would "enrapture millions of people".[141][142]
Hindenburg reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler as chancellor after two further parliamentary elections—in July and November 1932—had not resulted in the formation of a majority government. Hitler was to head a short-lived coalition government formed by the NSDAP and Hugenberg's party, the German National People's Party (DNVP). On 30 January 1933 the new cabinet was sworn in during a brief and simple ceremony in Hindenburg's office. The NSDAP held three of the eleven posts: Hitler was named chancellor, Hermann Göring was named minister without portfolio, and Wilhelm Frick was appointed minister of the interior.[143]
Reichstag fire and March elections[link]
As chancellor, Hitler worked against attempts by the NSDAP's opponents to build a majority government. Because of the political stalemate, he asked President Hindenburg to again dissolve the Reichstag, and elections were scheduled for early March. On 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire. Göring blamed a communist plot, because Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe was found in incriminating circumstances inside the burning building.[144] At Hitler's urging, Hindenburg responded with the Reichstag Fire Decree of 28 February, which suspended basic rights and allowed detention without trial. Activities of the German Communist Party were suppressed, and some 4,000 communist party members were arrested.[145] Researchers, including William L. Shirer and Alan Bullock, are of the opinion that the NSDAP itself was responsible for starting the fire.[146][147]
In addition to political campaigning, the NSDAP engaged in paramilitary violence and the spread of anti-communist propaganda in the days preceding the election. On election day, 6 March 1933, the NSDAP's share of the vote increased to 43.9%, and the party acquired the largest number of seats in parliament. However, Hitler's party failed to secure an absolute majority, necessitating another coalition with the DNVP.[148]
Day of Potsdam and the Enabling Act[link]
On 21 March 1933 the new Reichstag was constituted with an opening ceremony at the Garrison Church in Potsdam. This "Day of Potsdam" was held to demonstrate unity between the Nazi movement and the old Prussian elite and military. Hitler appeared in a morning coat and humbly greeted President von Hindenburg.[149][150]
To achieve full political control despite not having an absolute majority in parliament, Hitler's government brought the Ermächtigungsgesetz (Enabling Act) to a vote in the newly elected Reichstag. The act gave Hitler's cabinet full legislative powers for a period of four years and (with certain exceptions) allowed deviations from the constitution.[151] The bill required a two-thirds majority to pass. Leaving nothing to chance, the Nazis used the provisions of the Reichstag Fire Decree to keep several Social Democratic deputies from attending; the Communists had already been banned.[152]
On 23 March, the Reichstag assembled at the Kroll Opera House under turbulent circumstances. Ranks of SA men served as guards inside the building, while large groups outside opposing the proposed legislation shouted slogans and threats toward the arriving members of parliament.[153] The position of the Centre Party, the third largest party in the Reichstag, turned out to be decisive. After Hitler verbally promised party leader Ludwig Kaas that President von Hindenburg would retain his power of veto, Kaas announced the Centre Party would support the Enabling Act. Ultimately, the Enabling Act passed by a vote of 441–84, with all parties except the Social Democrats voting in favour. The Enabling Act, along with the Reichstag Fire Decree, transformed Hitler's government into a de facto legal dictatorship.[154]
Removal of remaining limits[link]
At the risk of appearing to talk nonsense I tell you that the National Socialist movement will go on for 1,000 years! ... Don't forget how people laughed at me 15 years ago when I declared that one day I would govern Germany. They laugh now, just as foolishly, when I declare that I shall remain in power!
— Adolf Hitler to a British correspondent in Berlin, June 1934[155]
Having achieved full control over the legislative and executive branches of government, Hitler and his political allies embarked on a systematic suppression of the remaining political opposition. The Social Democratic Party was banned and all its assets seized.[156] While many trade union delegates were in Berlin for May Day activities, SA stormtroopers demolished trade union offices around the country. On 2 May 1933 all trade unions were forced to dissolve and their leaders were arrested; some were sent to concentration camps.[157] The German Labour Front was formed to represent all workers, administrators, and company owners together as one group. This new labour organisation reflected the concept of national socialism in the spirit of Hitler's "Volksgemeinschaft" (German racial community).[158]
By the end of June, the other parties had been intimidated into disbanding. With the help of the SA, Hitler pressured his nominal coalition partner, Hugenberg, into resigning. On 14 July 1933 Hitler's Nazi Party was declared the only legal political party in Germany.[158][156] The demands of the SA for more political and military power caused much anxiety among military, industrial, and political leaders. Hitler responded by purging the entire SA leadership in what became known as the Night of the Long Knives, which took place from 30 June to 2 July 1934.[159] Hitler targeted Ernst Röhm and other political adversaries (such as Gregor Strasser and former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher). Röhm and other SA leaders, along with a number of Hitler's political enemies, were rounded up, arrested, and shot.[160] While the international community and some Germans were shocked by the murders, many in Germany saw Hitler as restoring order.[161]
On 2 August 1934 President von Hindenburg died. The previous day, the cabinet had enacted a law to take effect upon Hindenburg's death which abolished the office of president and combined its powers with those of the chancellor. Hitler thus became head of state as well as head of government, and was formally named as Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor).[162] This law actually violated the Enabling Act. While the Enabling Act allowed Hitler to deviate from the constitution, it explicitly barred him from passing any law that tampered with the presidency. In 1932, the constitution had been amended to make the president of the High Court of Justice, not the chancellor, acting president pending new elections.[163] With this law, Hitler removed the last legal remedy by which he could be removed from office.
As head of state, Hitler became Supreme Commander of the armed forces. The traditional loyalty oath of soldiers and sailors was altered to affirm loyalty to Hitler personally, rather than to the office of supreme commander.[164] On 19 August, the merger of the presidency with the chancellorship was approved by a plebiscite with support of 90% of the electorate.[165]
In early 1938 Hitler forced his War Minister, Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg, to resign when a police dossier was discovered showing that Blomberg's new wife had a record for prostitution.[166][167] Hitler removed army commander Colonel-General Werner von Fritsch after the Schutzstaffel (SS) produced allegations that he had taken part in a homosexual relationship.[168] Both men had already fallen into disfavour when they objected to his demand that they have the Wehrmacht ready to go to war as early as 1938.[169] Hitler used this incident, known as the Blomberg–Fritsch Affair, to consolidate his hold over the military. He assumed Blomberg's title of Commander-in-Chief, thus taking personal command of the armed forces. He replaced the Ministry of War with the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces, or OKW), headed by General Wilhelm Keitel. On the same day, sixteen generals were stripped of their commands and 44 more were transferred; all were suspected of not being sufficiently pro-Nazi.[170] By early February 1938, twelve other generals had been removed.[171]
Having consolidated his political powers, Hitler suppressed or eliminated his opposition by a process termed Gleichschaltung ("bringing into line"). He attempted to gain additional public support by vowing to reverse the effects of the Depression and the Versailles Treaty.
Third Reich[link]
Main article: Nazi Germany
Economy and culture[link]
In 1935 Hitler appointed Hjalmar Schacht as Plenipotentiary for War Economy, in charge of preparing the economy for war. Reconstruction and rearmament were financed through Mefo bills, printing money, and seizing the assets of people arrested as enemies of the State, including Jews.[172] Unemployment fell substantially, from six million in 1932 to one million in 1936.[173] Hitler oversaw one of the largest infrastructure improvement campaigns in German history, leading to the construction of dams, autobahns, railroads, and other civil works. Wages were slightly reduced in the pre–World War II years over those of the Weimar Republic, while the cost of living increased by 25%.[174]
Hitler's government sponsored architecture on an immense scale. Albert Speer, instrumental in implementing Hitler's classicist reinterpretation of German culture, was placed in charge of the proposed architectural renovations of Berlin.[175] In 1936 Hitler opened the summer Olympic games in Berlin.
Rearmament and new alliances[link]
In a meeting with German military leaders on 3 February 1933, Hitler spoke of "conquest for Lebensraum in the East and its ruthless Germanisation" as his ultimate foreign policy objectives.[176] In March, Prince Bernhard Wilhelm von Bülow, secretary at the Auswärtiges Amt (Foreign Office), issued a major statement of German foreign policy aims: Anschluss with Austria, the restoration of Germany's national borders of 1914, rejection of military restrictions under the Treaty of Versailles, the return of the former German colonies in Africa, and a German zone of influence in Eastern Europe. Hitler found Bülow's goals to be too modest.[177] In his speeches of this period, he stressed the peaceful goals of his policies and willingness to work within international agreements.[178] At the first meeting of his Cabinet in 1933, Hitler prioritised military spending over unemployment relief.[179]
File:Hitlermusso2 edit.jpg
On 25 October 1936 an Axis was declared between Italy and Germany.
Germany withdrew from the League of Nations and the World Disarmament Conference in October 1933.[180] In March 1935 Hitler announced an expansion of the Wehrmacht to 600,000 members—six times the number permitted by the Versailles Treaty—including development of an Air Force (Luftwaffe) and increasing the size of the Navy (Kriegsmarine). Britain, France, Italy, and the League of Nations condemned these plans as violations of the Treaty.[181] The Anglo-German Naval Agreement (AGNA) of 18 June 1935 allowed 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.[182] France and Italy were not consulted before the signing, directly undermining the League of Nations and putting the Treaty of Versailles on the path towards irrelevance.[183]
Germany reoccupied the demilitarised zone in the Rhineland in March 1936, in violation the Versailles Treaty. Hitler sent troops to Spain to support General Franco after receiving an appeal for help in July 1936. At the same time, Hitler continued his efforts to create an Anglo-German alliance.[184] In response to a growing economic crisis caused by his rearmament efforts, Hitler issued a memorandum ordering Göring to carry out a Four Year Plan to prepare Germany for war within the next four years.[185] The "Four-Year Plan Memorandum" of August 1936 envisaged an 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.[186]
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. Hitler abandoned his dream of an Anglo-German alliance, blaming "inadequate" British leadership.[187] At a secret meeting in the Reich Chancellery with his foreign ministers and military chiefs that November, Hitler stated his intention of acquiring Lebensraum ("living space") for the German people. He ordered preparations for war in the east, to begin as early as 1938 and no later than 1943. He stated that the conference minutes, recorded as the Hossbach Memorandum, were to be regarded as his "political testament" in the event of his death.[188] He felt the German economic crisis had reached a point that a severe decline in living standards in Germany could only be stopped by a policy of military aggression—seizing Austria and Czechoslovakia.[189][190] Hitler urged quick action, before Britain and France obtained a permanent lead in the arms race.[189] In early 1938, in the wake of the Blomberg–Fritsch Affair, Hitler asserted control of the military-foreign policy apparatus, dismissing Neurath as Foreign Minister and appointing himself Oberster Befehlshaber der Wehrmacht (supreme commander of the armed forces).[185] From early 1938 onwards, Hitler was carrying out a foreign policy ultimately aimed at war.[191]
The Holocaust[link]
Main article: The Holocaust
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![192]
— Adolf Hitler addressing the German Reichstag, 30 January 1939
A main Nazi concept was the notion of racial hygiene. On 15 September 1935, Hitler presented two laws—known as the Nuremberg Laws—to the Reichstag. The laws banned marriage between non-Jewish and Jewish Germans, and forbade the employment of non-Jewish women under the age of 45 in Jewish households. The laws deprived so-called "non-Aryans" of the benefits of German citizenship.[193] Hitler's early eugenic policies targeted children with physical and developmental disabilities in a programme dubbed Action Brandt, and later authorized a euthanasia programme for adults with serious mental and physical handicaps, now usually referred to as Action T4.[194]
Hitler's idea of Lebensraum, espoused briefly in Mein Kampf, focused on acquiring new territory for German settlement in Eastern Europe.[195] The Generalplan Ost ("General Plan for the East") called for the population of occupied Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to be deported to West Siberia, used as slave labour, or murdered;[196] the conquered territories were to be colonised by German or "Germanised" settlers.[197] The original plan called for this process to begin after the conquest of the Soviet Union, but when that failed to happen, Hitler moved the plans forward.[196][198] By January 1942 the decision had been taken to kill the Jews and other deportees considered undesirable.[199]
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 Heydrich, with fifteen senior Nazi officials participating—provide the clearest evidence of 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".[200] Approximately thirty Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps were used for this purpose.[201] By summer 1942 Auschwitz concentration camp was rapidly expanded to accept large numbers of deportees for killing or enslavement.[202]
Although no specific order from Hitler authorising the mass killings has surfaced,[203] he approved the Einsatzgruppen—killing squads that followed the German army through Poland, the Baltic, and the Soviet Union[204]—and he was well informed about their activities.[205] During interrogations by Soviet intelligence officers, the records of which were declassified over fifty years later, Hitler's valet, Heinz Linge, and his adjutant, Otto Günsche, stated that Hitler had a direct interest in the development of gas chambers.[206]
Between 1939 and 1945, the SS, assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries, were responsible for the deaths of eleven to fourteen million people, including about six million Jews, representing two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe,[207][208] and between 500,000 and 1,500,000 Roma.[209] Deaths took place in concentration and extermination 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.[210]
Hitler's policies also resulted in the killings of Poles[211] and Soviet prisoners of war, communists and other political opponents, homosexuals, the physically and mentally disabled,[212][213] Jehovah's Witnesses, Adventists, and trade unionists. Hitler never appeared to have visited the concentration camps and did not speak publicly about the killings.[214]
World War II[link]
Early diplomatic successes[link]
Alliance with Japan[link]
Main article: Germany–Japan relations
In February 1938, on the advice of his newly appointed Foreign Minister, the strongly pro-Japanese Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler ended the Sino-German alliance with the Republic of China to instead enter 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 their former colonies in the Pacific held by Japan.[215] Hitler ordered an end to arms shipments to China and recalled all German officers working with the Chinese Army.[215] In retaliation, Chinese General Chiang Kai-shek cancelled all Sino-German economic agreements, depriving the Germans of many Chinese raw materials, though they did continue to ship tungsten, a key metal in armaments production, through to 1939.[216]
Austria and Czechoslovakia[link]
On 12 March 1938 Hitler declared unification of Austria with Nazi Germany in the Anschluss.[217][218] Hitler then turned his attention to the ethnic German population of the Sudetenland district of Czechoslovakia.[219]
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. The 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".[220] In private, Hitler considered the Sudeten issue unimportant; his real intention was a war of conquest against Czechoslovakia.[221]
In April 1938 Hitler ordered the OKW to prepare for Fall Grün ("Case Green"), the code name for an invasion of Czechoslovakia.[222] As a result of intense French and British diplomatic pressure, on 5 September 1938 Czechoslovakian President Edvard Beneš unveiled the "Fourth Plan" for constitutional reorganisation of his country, which agreed to most of Henlein's demands for Sudeten autonomy.[223] 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.[224][225]
Germany was dependent on imported oil; 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.[226] On 29 September 1938 Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Édouard Daladier, and Benito Mussolini attended a one-day conference in Munich that led to the Munich Agreement, which handed over the Sudetenland districts to Germany.[227][228]
Chamberlain was satisfied with the Munich conference, calling the outcome "peace for our time", while Hitler was angered about the missed opportunity for war in 1938;[229][230] he expressed his disappointment in a speech on 9 October 1938 in Saarbrücken.[231] In Hitler's view, the British-brokered peace, although favourable to the ostensible German demands, was a diplomatic defeat which spurred his intent of limiting British power to pave the way for the eastern expansion of Germany.[232][233] As a result of the summit, Hitler was selected Time magazine's Man of the Year for 1938.[234]
In late 1938 and early 1939, the continuing economic crisis caused by rearmament forced Hitler to make major defence cuts.[235] In his "Export or die" speech of 30 January 1939, he called for an economic offensive to increase German foreign exchange holdings to pay for raw materials such as high-grade iron needed for military weapons.[235]
On 15 March 1939, in violation of the Munich accord and possibly as a result of the deepening economic crisis requiring additional assets,[236] Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to invade Prague, and from Prague Castle proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate.[237]
Start of World War II[link]
In private discussions in 1939, Hitler described Britain as the main enemy to be defeated. In his view, Poland's obliteration as a sovereign nation was a necessary prelude to that goal. The eastern flank would be secured and land would be added to Germany's Lebensraum.[238] Hitler wanted Poland to become either a German satellite state or be otherwise neutralised to secure the Reich's eastern flank, and to prevent a possible British blockade.[239] Initially, Hitler favoured the idea of a satellite state; this was rejected by the Polish government. Therefore, Hitler decided to invade Poland; he made this the main German foreign policy goal of 1939.[240] 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".[241] In a speech in Wilhelmshaven for the launch of the battleship Tirpitz on 1 April 1939, Hitler threatened to denounce the Anglo-German Naval Agreement if the British persisted with their guarantee of Polish independence, which he perceived as an "encirclement" policy.[241] On 3 April 1939 Hitler ordered the military to prepare for Fall Weiss ("Case White"), the plan for an invasion of Poland on 25 August 1939.[240] In a speech before the Reichstag on 28 April he renounced both the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact. In August Hitler told his generals that his original plan for 1939 was to "... establish an acceptable relationship with Poland in order to fight against the West". Since Poland refused to become a German satellite, Hitler stated his only option was the invasion of Poland.[242] Historians such as William Carr, Gerhard Weinberg, and Ian Kershaw have argued that one reason for Hitler's rush to war was his morbid and obsessive fear of an early death, and hence his feeling that he did not have long to accomplish his work.[243][244][245]
Hitler was concerned that a military attack against Poland could result in a premature war with Britain.[239][246] 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.[247][248] 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;[249] Ribbentrop showed Hitler diplomatic cables that supported his analysis.[250] The German Ambassador in London, Herbert von Dirksen, supported Ribbentrop's analysis with a dispatch in August 1939, reporting that 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.[248] Accordingly, on 21 August 1939 Hitler ordered a military mobilisation against Poland.[251]
Hitler's plans for a military campaign in Poland in late August or early September required tacit Soviet support.[252] The non-aggression pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) between Germany and the Soviet Union, led by Joseph Stalin,[253] included secret protocols with an agreement to partition Poland between the two countries. In response to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact—and contrary to the prediction of Ribbentrop that the newly-formed pact would sever 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.[254] 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 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.[255][256]
As a pretext for a military aggression against Poland, Hitler claimed the Free City of Danzig and the right to extraterritorial roads across the Polish Corridor, which Germany had ceded under the Versailles Treaty.[257] Despite his concerns over a possible British intervention, Hitler was ultimately not deterred from his aim of invading Poland,[258] 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?"[259] France and Britain did not act on their declarations immediately, and on 17 September, Soviet forces invaded eastern Poland.[260]
Poland never will rise again in the form of the Versailles treaty. That is guaranteed not only by Germany, but also ... Russia.
The fall of Poland was followed by what contemporary journalists dubbed the "Phoney War" or Sitzkrieg ("sitting war"). Hitler instructed the two newly-appointed Gauleiters of north-western Poland, Albert Forster of Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia and Arthur Greiser of Reichsgau Wartheland, to "Germanise" their areas, and promised them "There would be no questions asked" about how this was accomplished.[262] To Himmler's chagrin, Forster had local Poles sign forms stating that they had German blood, and required no further documentation.[263] On the other hand, Greiser carried out a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign on the Polish population in his purview.[262] Greiser complained to Hitler that Forster was allowing thousands of Poles to be accepted as "racial" Germans and thus, in Greiser's view, endangering German "racial purity". Hitler told Himmler and Greiser to take up their difficulties with Forster, and not to involve him.[262] Hitler's handling of the Forster–Greiser dispute has been advanced as an example of Kershaw's theory of "working towards the Führer": Hitler issued vague instructions and expected his subordinates to work out policies on their own.
Another dispute broke out between different factions. One side, represented by Himmler and Greiser, championed carrying out ethnic cleansing in Poland, and another side, represented by Göring and Hans Frank, Governor-General of the General Government territory of occupied Poland, called for turning Poland into the "granary" of the Reich.[264] At a conference held at Göring's Karinhall estate on 12 February 1940, the dispute was initially settled in favour of the Göring–Frank view of economic exploitation, which ended the economically disruptive mass expulsions.[264] 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".[264] Hitler called Himmler's memo "good and correct";[264] and, ignoring Göring and Frank, implemented the Himmler–Greiser policy in Poland.
File:Adolf Hitler in Paris 1940.jpg
Hitler visits Paris with architect Albert Speer (left) and sculptor Arno Breker (right), 23 June 1940
Hitler began a military build-up on Germany's western border, and in April 1940, German forces invaded Denmark and Norway. On 9 April Hitler proclaimed the birth of the "Greater Germanic Reich" to his associates; this was his vision of a united empire of the Germanic nations of Europe, where the Dutch, Flemish, Scandinavians, and other peoples would join into a single, racially-pure polity under German leadership.[265] In May 1940, Hitler's forces attacked France, and conquered Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium. These victories prompted Mussolini to have Italy join forces with Hitler on 10 June 1940. France surrendered on 22 June 1940.[266]
Britain, whose forces were forced to leave France by sea from Dunkirk,[267] continued to fight alongside other British dominions in the Battle of the Atlantic. Hitler made peace overtures to the British, now led by Winston Churchill, and when these were rejected he ordered bombing raids on the United Kingdom. Hitler's prelude to a planned invasion of the UK was a series of 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.[268]
On 27 September 1940 the Tripartite Pact was signed in Berlin by Saburō Kurusu of Imperial Japan, Hitler, and Italian foreign minister Ciano.[269] The agreement 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 of Britain—Operation Sea Lion—could not be achieved, and Hitler ordered nightly air raids of British cities, including London, Plymouth, and Coventry.[270]
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 the Italian presence. In April, Hitler launched the invasion of Yugoslavia, quickly followed by the invasion of Greece.[271] 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.[272]
Path to defeat[link]
On 22 June 1941, contravening the Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact of 1939, three million German troops attacked the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.[273] The invasion seized a huge area, including the Baltic states, Belarus, and Ukraine. However, the German advance was stopped outside Moscow in December 1941 by the Russian Winter and fierce Soviet resistance.[274]
Soviet troop concentrations on Germany's eastern 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.[275] 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—a preventive war to avert an impending Soviet attack scheduled for July 1941. This theory, however, has been faulted; American historian Gerhard Weinberg once compared the advocates of the preventive war theory to believers in "fairy tales".[276]
The Wehrmacht invasion of the Soviet Union reached its peak on 2 December 1941, when the 258th Infantry Division advanced to within 15 miles (24 km) of Moscow, close enough to see the spires of the Kremlin.[274] However, they were not prepared for the harsh conditions of the Russian winter, and Soviet forces drove back the German troops over 320 kilometres (200 mi).
On 7 December 1941 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Four days later, Hitler's formal declaration of war against the United States engaged Germany 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).[277]
When Himmler met Hitler on 18 December 1941 and posed the question "What to do with the Jews of Russia?", Hitler replied "als Partisanen auszurotten" ("exterminate them as partisans").[278] 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.[278]
In late 1942 German forces were defeated in the second battle of El Alamein,[279] 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 Sixth Army. Thereafter came a decisive defeat at the Battle of Kursk.[280] Hitler's military judgment became increasingly erratic, and Germany's military and economic position deteriorated along with Hitler's health. Kershaw and others believe that Hitler may have suffered from Parkinson's disease.[281]
Following the allied invasion of Sicily in 1943, Mussolini was deposed by Pietro Badoglio,[282] 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.[283] As a result of these significant setbacks for the German army, many of its officers concluded that defeat was inevitable and that Hitler's misjudgement or denial would drag out the war and result in the complete destruction of the country.[284] Several high-profile assassination attempts against Hitler occurred during this period.
Between 1939 and 1945 there were many plans to assassinate Hitler, some of which proceeded to significant degrees.[285] The most well-known came from within Germany and was at least partly driven by the increasing prospect of a German defeat in the war.[286] In July 1944, in the 20 July plot, part of Operation Valkyrie, Claus von Stauffenberg planted a bomb in one of Hitler's headquarters, the Wolf's Lair at Rastenburg. Hitler narrowly survived because someone had unknowingly pushed the briefcase that contained the bomb 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 execution of more than 4,900 people.[287]
Defeat and death[link]
Main article: Death of Adolf Hitler
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 failure of his Ardennes Offensive, Hitler realised that Germany was going to lose the war. His hope, buoyed by the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on 12 April 1945, was to negotiate peace with America and Britain.[288] Acting on his view that Germany's military failures had forfeited its right to survive as a nation, Hitler ordered the destruction of all German industrial infrastructure before it could fall into Allied hands.[289] Execution of this scorched earth plan was entrusted to arms minister Albert Speer, who quietly disobeyed the order.[289]
On 20 April, his 56th birthday, Hitler made his last trip from the Führerbunker ("Führer's shelter") to the surface. In the ruined garden of the Reich Chancellery, he awarded Iron Crosses to boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth.[290] By 21 April, Georgy 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 and advanced into the outskirts of Berlin.[291] In denial about the increasingly dire situation, Hitler placed his hopes on the units commanded by Waffen SS General Felix Steiner, the Armeeabteilung Steiner ("Army Detachment Steiner"). Hitler ordered Steiner to attack the northern flank of the salient and the German Ninth Army was ordered to attack northward in a pincer attack.[292]
During a military conference on 22 April, Hitler asked about Steiner's offensive. After a long silence, he 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, Alfred Jodl, Hans Krebs, and Wilhelm Burgdorf to leave the room.[293] Hitler then launched a tirade against the treachery and incompetence of his commanders, culminating in his declaration—for the first time—that the war was lost. Hitler announced that he would stay in Berlin until the end and then shoot himself.[294]
Goebbels made a proclamation on 23 April urging the citizens of Berlin to courageously defend the city.[293] That same day, 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.[295] Hitler responded angrily by having Göring arrested, and when writing his will on 29 April, he removed Göring from all his positions in the government.[296][297]
Berlin became completely cut off from the rest of Germany.[298] On 28 April, Hitler discovered that Himmler was trying to discuss surrender terms with the Western Allies.[299] He ordered Himmler's arrest and had Hermann Fegelein (Himmler's SS representative at Hitler's HQ in Berlin) shot.[300]
After midnight on 29 April, Hitler married Eva Braun in a small civil ceremony in a map room within the Führerbunker. After a modest wedding breakfast with his new wife, he then took secretary Traudl Junge to another room and dictated his last will and testament.[301][b] The event was witnessed and documents signed by Hans Krebs, Wilhelm Burgdorf, Joseph Goebbels, and Martin Bormann.[302] Later that afternoon, Hitler was informed of the assassination of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, which presumably increased his determination to avoid capture.[303]
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 bit into a cyanide capsule[304] and Hitler shot himself with his 7.65 mm (0.3 in) Walther PPK pistol.[305] 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[306] and doused with petrol. The corpses were set on fire[307] and the Red Army shelling continued.[308]
Berlin surrendered on 2 May. Records in the Soviet archives—obtained after the fall of the Soviet Union—showed that the remains of Hitler, Braun, Joseph and Magda Goebbels, the six Goebbels children, General Hans Krebs, and Hitler's dogs, were repeatedly buried and exhumed.[309] 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.[310]
Legacy[link]
Further information: Consequences of Nazism and Neo-Nazism
Hitler's suicide was likened by contemporaries to a "spell" being broken.[311][312] According to Toland, without its leader, National Socialism "burst like a bubble".[313]
Hitler's actions and Nazi ideology are almost universally regarded as gravely immoral.[314] His political programme had brought about a world war, leaving behind a devastated and impoverished Eastern and Central Europe. Germany itself suffered wholesale destruction, characterised as "Zero Hour".[315] Hitler's policies inflicted human suffering on an unprecedented scale;[316] the Nazi regime was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 21 million civilians and prisoners of war.[317] In addition, 29 million soldiers were killed in the European theater of World War II.[317] Historians, philosophers, and politicians often apply the word "evil" in describing the Nazi regime.[318] In Germany and Austria, Holocaust denial and the display of Nazi symbols such as the swastika are prohibited by law.
The German Liberal historian Friedrich Meinecke described Hitler as "one of the great examples of the singular and incalculable power of personality in historical life".[319] The English historian Hugh Trevor-Roper saw him as "among the 'terrible simplifiers' of history, the most systematic, the most historical, the most philosophical, and yet the coarsest, cruellest, least magnanimous conqueror the world has ever known."[320] For the historian John M. Roberts, Hitler's defeat marked the end of a phase of European history dominated by Germany.[321] In its place emerged the Cold War, a global confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States.[322]
Religious views[link]
Main article: Religious views of Adolf Hitler
Hitler saw the church as important politically, as a conservative influence on society. He felt that if the church were eliminated the faithful would turn to mysticism, which he thought would be a step backwards politically and culturally. Though he never officially left the Catholic church, he had no real attachment to it.[323] After leaving home he never attended Mass or received the sacraments.[324] He favoured aspects of Protestantism that suited his own views, and adopted some elements of the Catholic Church's hierarchical organisation, liturgy, and phraseology in his politics.[325][326] Historian Richard Steigmann-Gall concludes that he "can be classified as Catholic",[327] but that "nominal church membership is a very unreliable gauge of actual piety in this context."[328]
In public, Hitler often praised Christian heritage and German Christian culture, and professed a belief in an "Aryan" Jesus Christ—a Jesus who fought against the Jews.[329] He 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."[330][331] In private, he 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.[332] Historian John S. Conway states that Hitler held a "fundamental antagonism" towards the Christian churches.[333]
In political relations with the church, Hitler adopted a strategy "that suited his immediate political purposes".[333] According to a US Office of Strategic Services report, Hitler had a general plan, even before his rise to power, to destroy the influence of Christian churches within the Reich.[334][335] The report titled "The Nazi Master Plan" stated that the destruction of the church was a goal of the movement right from the start, but that it was inexpedient to express this extreme position publicly.[336] His intention, according to Bullock, was to wait until the war was over to destroy the influence of Christianity.[332]
Hitler admired the Muslim military tradition, but considered Arabs as "racially inferior".[337] He believed that the racially-superior Germans, in conjunction with Islam, could have conquered much of the world during the Middle Ages.[338] During a meeting with a Japanese professor in 1931, Hitler praised the Shinto religion and Japanese culture.[339] Although Himmler was interested in the occult, the interpretation of runes, and tracing the prehistoric roots of the Germanic people, Hitler was more pragmatic, and his ideology centred on more practical concerns.[340][341]
Health[link]
Researchers have suggested that Hitler suffered from irritable bowel syndrome, skin lesions, irregular heartbeat, Parkinson's disease,[342][281] syphilis,[342] and tinnitus.[343] In a report prepared for the Office of Strategic Services in 1943, Walter C. Langer of Harvard University described Hitler as a "neurotic psychopath."[344] 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.[345] Kershaw feels that it is better to take a broader view of German history by examining 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.[346]
Hitler followed a vegetarian diet.[347] At social events he sometimes gave graphic accounts of the slaughter of animals in an effort to make his dinner guests shun meat.[348] A fear of cancer (from which his mother died)[349] is the most widely cited reason for Hitler's dietary habits. An antivivisectionist, Hitler may have followed his selective diet out of a profound concern for animals.[350] 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 despised alcohol[351] and was a non-smoker. He promoted aggressive anti-smoking campaigns throughout Germany.[352] Hitler began using amphetamine occasionally after 1937 and became addicted to the drug in the fall of 1942.[353] Albert Speer linked this use of amphetamines to Hitler's increasingly inflexible decision making (for example, never to allow military retreats).[354]
Prescribed ninety different medications during the war years, Hitler took many pills each day for chronic stomach problems and other ailments.[355] He 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.[356] Newsreel footage of Hitler shows tremors of his hand and a shuffling walk, which began before the war and worsened towards the end of his life. Hitler's personal physician, Theodor Morell, treated Hitler with a drug that was commonly prescribed in 1945 for Parkinson's disease. Ernst-Günther Schenck and several other doctors who met Hitler in the last weeks of his life each formed a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease.[355][357]
Family[link]
Main articles: Hitler family and Sexuality of Adolf Hitler
To the public, Hitler promoted his own image as that of a celibate man without a domestic life, dedicated entirely to his political mission and the nation.[135][358] He met his mistress, Eva Braun, in 1929,[359] and married her in April 1945.[360] In September 1931 his niece, Geli Raubal, committed suicide with Hitler's gun in his Munich apartment. It was rumoured among contemporaries that Geli was in a romantic relationship with him, and her death was a source of deep, lasting pain.[361] Paula Hitler, the last living member of the immediate family, died in 1960.[362]
Hitler in media[link]
File:Adolf Hitler at Berchtesgaden.ogg
Video of Hitler at Berchtesgaden (c. 1941)
Hitler used documentary films as a propaganda tool. He was involved and appeared in a series of films by the pioneering filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl via Universum Film AG (UFA):[363]
- Der Sieg des Glaubens (Victory of Faith, 1933)
- Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will, 1934), co-produced by Hitler
- Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht (Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces, 1935)
- Olympia (1938)
See also[link]
- Führermuseum
- Hitler: A Film from Germany
- Julius Schaub – chief aide
- Karl Mayr – Hitler's superior in army Intelligence 1919–1920
- Karl Wilhelm Krause – personal valet
- List of books by or about Adolf Hitler
- Mein Kampf (online versions)
- Poison Kitchen
- Streets named after Adolf Hitler
- Vorbunker
 |
See more Wikipedia articles related to Adolf Hitler. |
Footnotes[link]
- ^ Hitler also won settlement from a libel suit against the socialist paper the Münchener Post, which had questioned his lifestyle and income. Kershaw 2008, p. 99.
- ^ MI5, Hitler's Last Days: "Hitler's will and marriage" on the website of MI5, using the sources available to Trevor Roper (a WWII MI5 agent and historian/author of The Last Days of Hitler), records the marriage as taking place after Hitler had dictated his last will and testament.
References[link]
- ^ NS-Archiv, 7 April 1925.
- ^ Maser 1973, p. 4.
- ^ Maser 1973, p. 15.
- ^ Rosenbaum 1999.
- ^ Hamann 2010, p. 50.
- ^ Toland 1992, pp. 246–47.
- ^ Kershaw 1999, pp. 8–9.
- ^ Jetzinger 1976, p. 32.
- ^ BBC News, 2011.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 9.
- ^ Rosmus 2004, p. 33.
- ^ Keller 2010, p. 15.
- ^ Hamann 2010, pp. 7–8.
- ^ Kubizek 2006, p. 37.
- ^ Kubizek 2006, p. 92.
- ^ Hitler 1999, p. 6.
- ^ Fromm 1977, pp. 493–498.
- ^ Hauner 1983, p. 2.
- ^ Shirer 1960, pp. 10–11.
- ^ Payne 1990, p. 22.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 9.
- ^ Hitler 1999, p. 8.
- ^ Keller 2010, pp. 33–34.
- ^ Fest 1977, p. 32.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 8.
- ^ Lipstadt 2011, p. 272.
- ^ Hitler 1999, p. 10.
- ^ Evans 2003, p. 163.
- ^ Bendersky 2000, p. 26.
- ^ Ryschka 2008, p. 35.
- ^ Hamann 2010, p. 13.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 10.
- ^ Kershaw 1999, p. 19.
- ^ Kershaw 1999, p. 20.
- ^ Bullock 1962, pp. 30–31.
- ^ Hitler 1999, p. 20.
- ^ Bullock 1999, pp. 30–33.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 26.
- ^ Hamann 2010, pp. 243–246.
- ^ Hamann 2010, pp. 341–345.
- ^ Hamann 2010, p. 350.
- ^ Kershaw 1999, p. 60–67.
- ^ Hitler 1999, p. 52.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 25.
- ^ Hamann 1999, p. 176.
- ^ Hamann 2010, pp. 348.
- ^ Kershaw 1999, p. 66.
- ^ Hamann 2010, pp. 347–359.
- ^ Kershaw 1999, p. 64.
- ^ Evans 2011.
- ^ a b Shirer 1960, p. 27.
- ^ Weber 2010, pp. 13.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 27, footnote.
- ^ a b Kershaw 1999, p. 90.
- ^ Weber 2010, pp. 12–13.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 53.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 54.
- ^ Weber 2010, p. 100.
- ^ a b Shirer 1960, p. 30.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 59.
- ^ Bullock 1962, p. 52.
- ^ Kershaw 1999, p. 96.
- ^ Steiner 1976, p. 392.
- ^ Jamieson 2008.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 57.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 58.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 59, 60.
- ^ Kershaw 1999, p. 97.
- ^ Kershaw 1999, p. 102.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 61, 62.
- ^ Keegan 1987, pp. 238–240.
- ^ Bullock 1962, p. 60.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 61–63.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 96.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 80, 90, 92.
- ^ Bullock 1999, p. 61.
- ^ Kershaw 1999, p. 109.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 82.
- ^ Stackelberg 2007, p. 9.
- ^ Mitcham 1996, p. 67.
- ^ Fest 1970, p. 21.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 94, 95, 100.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 87.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 88.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 89.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 89–92.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 81.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 100, 101.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 102.
- ^ a b Kershaw 2008, p. 103.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 83, 103.
- ^ Bullock 1999, p. 376.
- ^ Frauenfeld 1937.
- ^ Goebbels 1936.
- ^ Kressel 2002, p. 121.
- ^ Trevor-Roper 1987, p. 116.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 105–106.
- ^ Bullock 1999, p. 377.
- ^ Heck 2001, p. 23.
- ^ Larson 2011, p. 157.
- ^ Kershaw 1999, p. 367.
- ^ Kellogg 2005, p. 275.
- ^ Kellogg 2005, p. 203.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 126.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 125.
- ^ a b Kershaw 2008, p. 128.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 129.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 130–131.
- ^ Shirer 1960, pp. 73–74.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 132.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 131.
- ^ Munich Court, 1924.
- ^ Fulda 2009, pp. 68–69.
- ^ Kershaw 1999, p. 239.
- ^ a b Bullock 1962, p. 121.
- ^ Spiro 2008.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 148–149.
- ^ Shirer 1960, pp. 80–81.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 158, 161, 162.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 162, 166.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 129.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 166, 167.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 170, 172.
- ^ Shirer 1960, pp. 136–137.
- ^ Kolb 2005, pp. 224–225.
- ^ Kolb 1988, p. 105.
- ^ Halperin 1965, p. 403 et. seq.
- ^ Halperin 1965, pp. 434–446 et. seq.
- ^ Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 218.
- ^ Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 216.
- ^ Wheeler-Bennett 1967, pp. 218–219.
- ^ Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 222.
- ^ Halperin 1965, p. 449 et. seq.
- ^ Halperin 1965, pp. 434–436, 471.
- ^ a b Shirer 1960, p. 130.
- ^ Hinrichs 2007.
- ^ Halperin 1965, p. 476.
- ^ Halperin 1965, pp. 468–471.
- ^ Bullock 1962, p. 201.
- ^ Halperin 1965, pp. 477–479.
- ^ Letter to Hindenburg, 1932.
- ^ Fox News, 2003.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 184.
- ^ Bullock 1962, p. 262.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 194.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 192.
- ^ Bullock 1999, p. 262.
- ^ Bullock 1962, p. 265.
- ^ City of Potsdam.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 196–197.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 198.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 196.
- ^ Bullock 1999, p. 269.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 199.
- ^ Time, 1934.
- ^ a b Shirer 1960, p. 201.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 202.
- ^ a b Evans 2003, pp. 350–374.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 309–314.
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- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 229.
- ^ Bullock 1962, p. 309.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 230.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 392, 393.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 312.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. 393–397.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 308.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 318–319.
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- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 258.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 262.
- ^ Speer 1971, pp. 118–119.
- ^ Weinberg 1970, pp. 26–27.
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- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 816–818.
- ^ Shirer 1960, §29.
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- ^ Bullock 1962, p. 791.
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- ^ Bullock 1962, p. 795.
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- ^ Joachimsthaler 1999, pp. 217–220.
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- ^ Toland 1977, p. 892.
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- ^ Welch 2001, p. 2.
- ^ Shirer 1960, p. 6.
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- ^ Lichtheim 1974, p. 366.
- ^ Speer 1971, pp. 141–142.
- ^ Rißmann 2001, pp. 94–96.
- ^ Rißmann 2001, p. 96.
- ^ Bullock 1962, p. 219.
- ^ Steigmann-Gall 2003, p. XV.
- ^ Steigmann-Gall 2007.
- ^ Steigmann-Gall 2003, pp. 27, 108.
- ^ Hitler 1942, p. 20.
- ^ Hitler 1973, p. 23.
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- ^ a b Conway 1968, p. 3.
- ^ Sharkey 2002.
- ^ Bonney 2001.
- ^ Office of Strategic Services, 1945.
- ^ Speer 1971, p. 142–143.
- ^ Payne 2008, p. 171.
- ^ Hanfstaengl 1994, p. 174.
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- ^ Bullock 1999, p. 729.
- ^ a b Bullock 1962, p. 717.
- ^ Redlich 2000, pp. 129–190.
- ^ Langer 1972, p. 126.
- ^ Kershaw 2000a, p. 72.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, pp. xxxv–xxxvi.
- ^ Bullock 1999, p. 388.
- ^ Wilson 1998.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 380.
- ^ Dietrich 2010, p. 172.
- ^ Dietrich 2010, p. 171.
- ^ Toland 1992, p. 741.
- ^ Heston & Heston 1980, pp. 125–142.
- ^ Heston & Heston 1980, pp. 11–20.
- ^ a b Kershaw 2008, p. 782.
- ^ Linge 2009, p. 156.
- ^ O'Donnell 2001, p. 37.
- ^ Bullock 1999, p. 563.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 378.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 947–948.
- ^ Bullock 1962, pp. 393–394.
- ^ Kershaw 2008, p. 4.
- ^ The Daily Telegraph, 2003.
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Online
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External links[link]
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- Works by or about Adolf Hitler in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
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- "Adolf Hitler". The Vault. FBI Records. http://vault.fbi.gov/adolf-hitler.
- "Hitler and his officers". World War II Movies in Color. WW2inColor. http://www.ww2incolor.com/gallery/movies/hitler_color.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Office created |
Reichsstatthalter of Prussia 1933–1935 |
Succeeded by Office abolished |
| Preceded by Kurt von Schleicher |
Chancellor of Germany(1) 1933–1945 |
Succeeded by Joseph Goebbels |
| Preceded by Paul von Hindenburg As President |
Führer of Germany(1) 1934–1945 |
Succeeded by Karl Dönitz As President |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by Anton Drexler |
Leader of the NSDAP 1921–1945 |
|
| Military offices | ||
| Preceded by Franz Pfeffer von Salomon |
Leader of the SA 1930–1945 |
|
| Preceded by Walther von Brauchitsch |
Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres (Army Commander) 1941–1945 |
Succeeded by Ferdinand Schörner |
| Honorary titles | ||
| Preceded by Chiang Kai-shek and Soong May-ling |
Time Person of the Year 1938 |
Succeeded by Joseph Stalin |
| Notes and references | ||
| 1. The positions of Head of State and Government were combined 1934–1945 in the office of Führer and Chancellor of Germany | ||
|
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Hitler, Adolf |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | Führer of the National Socialist German Workers Party; Reichskanzler of Germany |
| Date of birth | 20 April 1889 |
| Place of birth | Braunau am Inn, Austria |
| Date of death | 30 April 1945 |
| Place of death | Berlin, Germany |
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This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
