Adolf Hitler - Biography - Military Leader, Dictator

Joseph Stalin - Biography - Dictator Joseph Stalin ruled the Soviet Union for more than two decades, instituting a reign of terror while modernizing Russia and helping to defeat Nazism. Synopsis Born on December 18, 1879, in Gori, Georgia, Joseph Stalin rose to power as General Secretary of the Communist Party, becoming a Soviet dictator upon Vladimir Lenin's death. Stalin forced rapid industrialization and the collectivization of agricultural land, resulting in millions dying from famine while others were sent to camps. His Red Army helped defeat Nazi Germany during WWII. Early Life On December 18, 1879, in the Russian peasant village of Gori, Georgia, Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (later known as Joseph Stalin) was born. Joseph's mother, a devout Russian Orthodox Christian, wanted him to become a priest. Though he excelled in seminary school, Joseph left in 1899. In February 1917, the Russian Revolution began. Advertisement — Continue reading below Communist Party Leader Death and Legacy Videos Related Videos

Nazi Hunting News Courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum In the years immediately after World War II, the four Allied powers that occupied Germany -- the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union -- resolved to prosecute those individuals responsible for crimes committed against civilian populations under Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. Trials were held in domestic and international courts, the most notable of which were the 1945-46 hearings at the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg, Germany. Although many civilian and military leaders were apprehended and brought to justice in the years after the war, many more suspected of Nazi-era war crimes remained at large. Private groups, some led by Holocaust survivors, took it upon themselves to track down Nazi-era war criminals. The 1960 capture of Adolf Eichmann, often referred to as the "architect of the Holocaust," by two Israeli-backed groups was the most notable case.

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was the founder and leader of the Nazi Party and the most influential voice in the organization, implementation and execution of the Holocaust, the systematic extermination and ethnic cleansing of six million European Jews and millions of other non-aryans. Hitler was the Head of State, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and guiding spirit, or fuhrer, of Germany's Third Reich from 1933 to 1945. - Hitler's Early Years - World War I - Hitler Starts to Lead - Rise of the Nazi Party - Hitler As German Fuhrer - World War II - Allied Victory & Hitler's Death Early Years Born in Braunau am Inn, Austria, on April 20, 1889, Hitler was the son of a fifty-two-year-old Austrian customs official, Alois Schickelgruber Hitler, and his third wife, a young peasant girl, Klara Poelzl, both from the backwoods of lower Austria. World War I Hitler Becomes a Leader Rise of the Nazi Party Hitler As Fuhrer World War II Allied Victory and Hitler's Death

Concentration Camps, 1933–1939 Concentration camps (Konzentrationslager; abbreviated as KL or KZ) were an integral feature of the regime in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. The term concentration camp refers to a camp in which people are detained or confined, usually under harsh conditions and without regard to legal norms of arrest and imprisonment that are acceptable in a constitutional democracy. THE FIRST CONCENTRATION CAMPS IN GERMANY The first concentration camps in Germany were established soon after Hitler's appointment as chancellor in January 1933. In the weeks after the Nazis came to power, The SA (Sturmabteilungen; commonly known as Storm Troopers), the SS (Schutzstaffel; Protection Squadrons—the elite guard of the Nazi party), the police, and local civilian authorities organized numerous detention camps to incarcerate real and perceived political opponents of Nazi policy. Special “political units on alert” (Politische Bereitschaften) originally guarded the SS concentration camps.

Nazism Nazism, or National Socialism in full (German: Nationalsozialismus), is the ideology and practice associated with the 20th-century German Nazi Party and state as well as other related far-right groups. Usually characterised as a form of fascism that incorporates scientific racism and antisemitism, Nazism originally developed from the influences of pan-Germanism, the Völkisch German nationalist movement and the anti-communist Freikorps paramilitary culture in post-First World War Germany, which many Germans felt had been left humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles. German Nazism subscribed to theories of racial hierarchy and social Darwinism, asserted the superiority of an Aryan master race, and criticised both capitalism and communism for being associated with Jewish materialism. The Nazi Party was founded as the pan-German nationalist and antisemitic German Workers' Party in January 1919. Etymology Position in the political spectrum Origins Völkisch nationalism

Maximilien de Robespierre - Philosopher, Government Official, Journalist, Scholar, Judge, Activist, Lawyer - Biography.com Maximilien de Robespierre was an official during the French Revolution and one of the principal architects of the Reign of Terror. Synopsis Maximilien de Robespierre was born on May 6, 1758, in Arras, France. He was a radical Jacobin leader and one of the principal figures in the French Revolution. In the latter months of 1793 he came to dominate the Committee of Public Safety, the principal organ of the Revolutionary government during the Reign of Terror, but in 1794 he was overthrown and guillotined. Early Life Maximilien Marie Isidore de Robespierre was born in Arras, France, on May 6, 1758, the oldest of four children. Entering Public Service Robespierre soon took on a public role, calling for political change in the French monarchy. At age 30, Robespierre was elected to the Estates General of the French legislature. Revolutionary or Madman? In April 1789, Robespierre was elected president of the powerful Jacobin political faction. Ironic Aftermath

History - World Wars: Nazi Propaganda Aggression as a Basic Nazi Idea: Mein Kampf [Page 644] Hitler's Mein Kampf, which became the Nazi statement of faith, gave to the conspirators adequate foreknowledge of the unlawful aims of the Nazi leadership. It was not only Hitler's political testament; by adoption it became theirs. Mein Kampf may be described as the blueprint of the Nazi aggression. Its whole tenor and content demonstrate that the Nazi pursuit of aggressive designs was no mere accident arising out of an immediate political situation in Europe and the world. A great German philosopher once said that ideas have hands and feet. A copy of Mein Kampf was officially presented by the Nazis to all newly married couples in Germany. "To the newly married couple, Friedrich Rosebrock and Else Geborene Zum Beck, with best wishes for a happy and blessed marriage. This copy of Mein Kampf, which was the 1945 edition, contains the information that the number of copies- published to date amount to 6,250,000.] [Page 646] entry into the League of Nations.

Escape of the Jewish People from Europe Even before the beginning of World War II, many Jews sought to escape from countries under Nazi control. Between 1933 and 1939, more than 90,000 German and Austrian Jews fled to neighboring countries (France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Czechoslovakia, and Switzerland). After the war began on September 1, 1939, escape became much more difficult. Most non-Jews neither aided nor hindered the "Final Solution" and relatively few people helped Jews escape. ESCAPE TO SOVIET-OCCUPIED POLAND AND THE INTERIOR OF THE SOVIET UNION Between 1939 and 1941 nearly 300,000 Polish Jews, almost 10 percent of the Polish Jewish population, fled German-occupied areas of Poland and crossed into the Soviet zone. ESCAPE TO NEUTRAL COUNTRIES Close to 30,000 Jews were admitted into Switzerland, although an estimated 20,000 were turned away at the Swiss border. Neutral Sweden provided sanctuary for some Norwegian Jews in 1940 and for virtually the entire Danish Jewish community in October 1943.

Anne Frank Born on June 12, 1929, Anne Frank was a German-Jewish teenager who was forced to go into hiding during the Holocaust. She and her family, along with four others, spent over two years during World War II hiding in an annex of rooms above her father’s office in Amsterdam. Since it was first published in 1947, Anne Frank’s diary has become one of the most powerful memoirs of the Holocaust. Its message of courage and hope in the face of adversity has reached millions. The diary has been translated into 67 languages with over 30 million copies sold. After being betrayed to the Nazis, Anne, her family, and the others living with them were arrested and deported to Nazi concentration camps. Her bravery and legacy live on, however, and she is frequently cited as a model for today.

Maximilien de Robespierre | French revolutionary Alternative title: Maximilien-François-Marie-Isidore de Robespierre Robespierre, Maximilien deThe Granger Collection, New York Maximilien de Robespierre, in full Maximilien-François-Marie-Isidore de Robespierre (born May 6, 1758, Arras, France—died July 28, 1794, Paris), radical Jacobin leader and one of the principal figures in the French Revolution. Robespierre was the son of a lawyer in Arras. Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler was born on 20th April, 1889, in the small Austrian town of Braunau near the German border. Both Hitler's parents had come from poor peasant families. His father Alois Hitler, the illegitimate son of a housemaid, was an intelligent and ambitious man and was at the time of Hitler's birth, a senior customs official in Lower Austria. Alois had been married before. In 1873 he had married Anna Glasl, the fifty-year-old adopted daughter of another customs collector. According to Ian Kershaw, the author of Hitler 1889-1936 (1998): "It is unlikely to have been a love-match. Klara Polzl, Hitler's mother, left home at sixteen to to join the household of her second cousin, Alois Hitler. Franziska saw Klara as a potential rival and insisted that she left the household. The first of the children of Alois's third marriage, Gustav, was born in May 1885, to be followed in September the following year by a second child, Ida, and another son, Otto, who died only days after his birth. Dr.

History - World Wars: The Rise of Adolf Hitler History of the Jews during World War II Group of Jewish parachutists under British command, who was sent into Slovakia. Palestine, wartime World War II is the most tragic period in Jewish history. German Nazi occupied Europe[edit] By World War II, nearly all Jewish companies had either collapsed under financial pressure and declining profits, or had been forced to sell out to the Nazi-German government as part of the "Aryanization" policy inaugurated in 1937. As the war started, large massacres of Jews took place. The first of these pogroms was Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany, often called Pogromnacht, or "night of broken glass," in which Jewish homes were ransacked in numerous German cities along with 11,000 Jewish shops, towns and villages,[1] as civilians and SA stormtroopers destroyed buildings with sledgehammers, leaving the streets covered in smashed windows — the origin of the name "Night of Broken Glass." By December 1941, Adolf Hitler decided to completely exterminate European Jews. Spain[edit] References[edit]