Nazi official who led SS intelligence and police agencies in implementing the Holocaust.
At the 1942 Wannsee Conference, Heydrich coordinated German state agencies for the murder of Europe’s Jews.
Heydrich joined the SS in 1931 and built and led its Security Service (SD); in 1936 he took command of the Security Police, including the Gestapo and criminal police. When the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) was established in 1939, he became its chief, unifying the Security Police and SD under an agency central to Nazi persecution and mass murder of Jews and political opponents. Appointed acting Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia in 1941, he oversaw executions of resistance figures and the ghettoization and deportation of Jews. He chaired the January 1942 Wannsee Conference to coordinate ministries in the murder of European Jews; wounded in an attack by Czech resistance agents in May, he died on June 4.
Career timeline
- 1931–1942Chief of the SS Security Service (SD)
- 1936–1942Chief of the Security Police, titled Chief of the Security Police Main Office, 1936–1939
- 1939–1942Chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA)
- 1941–1942Acting Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia
SS diplomat who, as Reich plenipotentiary in Hungary in 1944, pressed the Hungarian government to deport its Jews to Auschwitz
Born in Bad Kissingen, the son of a schoolteacher, he studied political science in Munich and took his doctorate in 1928. He joined the Nazi Party in 1932 and took part in forcing the resignation of Austria’s Chancellor Schuschnigg, the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in 1939 and the proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia in 1941. Promoted to SS-Brigadeführer, he became Reich plenipotentiary in Hungary when Germany occupied it in March 1944, with authority over all occupying forces except the Wehrmacht, chiefly the Gestapo, and pressed the Hungarian government to deport its Jews to Auschwitz. In June he cabled Ribbentrop that some 340,000 Jews had been delivered to the Reich, and in October he helped the Arrow Cross take power. Sentenced to 20 years at the Ministries Trial in 1949, he was released in 1951 and died in Darmstadt in 1977.
Career timeline
- 1928Doctorate in political science, Munich
- 1932Joined the Nazi Party
- 1939Worked on dismembering Czechoslovakia
- 1941Arranged the proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia in Zagreb
- 1944Reich plenipotentiary in Hungary
- 1949–1951Sentenced to 20 years at the Ministries Trial; released 1951
A social democrat who made reconciliation a politics of divided cities
After the Wall was built, he said: “The Wall must go, but until it goes, the city must live.”
Willy Brandt was a German social-democratic politician shaped by exile and resistance to the Nazi dictatorship. As Governing Mayor of West Berlin, he defended the city’s morale after the Wall was built and pressed the West to honor its responsibilities, helping popularize the name “Wall of Shame.” As chancellor, he pursued Ostpolitik and “change through rapprochement,” easing Cold War confrontation and earning the 1971 Nobel Peace Prize.
Career timeline
- 1933–1945Exile and resistance activist against the Nazi dictatorship
- 1948–1953SPD representative in Berlin
- 1957–1966Governing Mayor of West Berlin
- 1964–1987Chairman of the SPD
- 1966–1969Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor
- 1969–1974Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany
- 1976–1992President of the Socialist International
The chancellor who seized the initiative on the German question with a ten-point unification plan days before Malta
On 28 November 1989, Kohl rose in the Bundestag without having told his allies, or even his own foreign minister. President Bush received Kohl's letter summarizing the Ten-Point Plan just as the chancellor was already speaking in Bonn.
A Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician who served sixteen years as chancellor of West Germany and reunified Germany, leading both European integration and German reunification. On 28 November 1989, without consulting his allies, he presented a 'Ten-Point Plan' for German unity to the Bundestag; days later, at the Malta summit, the German question dominated the proceedings on his terms. The following year, on 3 October 1990, Germany was reunified; together with French president François Mitterrand, Kohl drove the Maastricht Treaty and the introduction of the euro. He achieved reunification by extending the West German system into the former East, and after his long tenure ended with electoral defeat in 1998, he resigned as CDU honorary chairman amid a party donations scandal.
Career timeline
- 1959Elected to the Landtag of Rhineland-Palatinate (youngest member)
- 1969–1976Minister-President of Rhineland-Palatinate
- 1973–1998Chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)
- 1976–1982Leader of the CDU/CSU opposition in the Bundestag
- 1982–1998Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany
- 1989.11.28Presented the Ten-Point Plan for German unity to the Bundestag
- 1990.10.03Presided over German reunification
- 1998Defeated in federal elections; resigned as CDU chairman
