People of the Revolution and the USSR

United Kingdom state institutions Counter-revolutionary forces 1883–1945 ✕ Killed in crash

The naval commander who organized the Dunkirk evacuation

From headquarters beneath Dover Castle, Ramsay and his staff coordinated the Dunkirk evacuation for nine days and nights.

Bertram Ramsay was a Royal Navy officer distinguished by his ability to organize and command maritime operations in wartime. At Dunkirk in 1940, he directed the evacuation of encircled British and Allied troops, coordinating warships and civilian vessels. He later served in the North African and Sicilian invasions before becoming Allied naval commander-in-chief for the Normandy landings in 1944. He died in France in 1945 when his aircraft crashed.

Germany state institutions Counter-revolutionary forces 1883–1945 ○ Died in prison

Wehrmacht general who directed anti-Partisan operations

Lüters assessed the Partisans' combat morale as “surprisingly high.”

Rudolf Lüters was a professional German officer who served through the First World War, the Imperial Army, and the Reichswehr before becoming a Wehrmacht general of infantry in the Second World War. From late 1942 he commanded German forces in Croatia and took part in planning and directing the Neretva and Sutjeska offensives against the Yugoslav Partisans. He assessed the Partisans as well organized and well led, with surprisingly high combat morale, yet at Sutjeska ordered that no able-bodied man leave the encirclement alive, exposing the annihilatory character of the occupation war. Captured by Soviet forces in 1945, he died in detention later that year.

Hungary state institutions Counter-revolutionary forces 1883–1946 ✕ Executed

Soldier-diplomat who pushed for the German alliance in Berlin and, as prime minister under occupation, sped up the Jewish deportations

Born Dimitrije Stojaković into a Serb family in Versec (Vršac), he served in the First World War as an intelligence officer of the Austro-Hungarian general staff. After the war he specialised in counter-espionage in Horthy’s counter-revolutionary army, was military attaché in Berlin from 1927 to 1933 and, from 1935 to 1944, Hungary’s minister in Berlin, where he pressed for alliance with Germany. Prime minister and foreign minister after the German occupation of March 1944, he legalised the Arrow Cross, dissolved the trade unions, jailed opponents and sharply accelerated the deportation of Jews. Forced out by Horthy’s pressure in August, he was captured by American troops after the war, handed over to Hungary, sentenced to death by a People’s Tribunal and shot in 1946.

Hungary state institutions Counter-revolutionary forces 1883–1947 ✕ Executed

Commander of the Hungarian Second Army destroyed on the Don in January 1943

Born Gusztáv Hautzinger, he trained at the Ludovika Academy and the Vienna war college and served as a staff officer in the First World War. On entering the Order of Vitéz in 1924 he took his mother’s surname, Jány, and from 1931 to 1936 he headed the Ludovika Academy. He became commander of the Second Army in March 1940 and led it to the Don in 1942. During the Soviet offensive of January 1943 he held to the no-retreat order, and when the army collapsed he issued an order of the day accusing his men of cowardice. Returning home voluntarily after the war, he was sentenced to death by a People’s Court and shot in 1947; the Supreme Court exonerated him in 1993.

Hungary state institutions Counter-revolutionary forces 1883–1951 ○ Died in prison

Factory owner who was prime minister of Hungary for three months after the August 1919 coup against the Peidl government

Born into a pharmacist’s family of German origin in Malacka (now Malacky, Slovakia), he studied engineering, worked for AEG in Berlin and then ran his own machinery works outside Budapest. He joined Mihály Károlyi’s Independence Party in 1912 and became one of his closest friends; after the Aster Revolution he was state secretary for war, but he drifted to the right and was dismissed in February 1919. Arrested under the Soviet Republic and sentenced to death, he had the sentence commuted and escaped. In August 1919 he joined the right-wing White House Comrades’ Association in ousting the Peidl government; on 7 August he was named prime minister, with Archduke Joseph August as regent, and held office until 24 November. Arrested by Rákosi’s regime in 1951 and sentenced to fifteen years, he died the same year; he was rehabilitated in 1990.

Japan state institutions Counter-revolutionary forces 1884–1943 ✕ Killed in action

The admiral who feared war with America yet designed Pearl Harbor

“For six months or a year I can run wild, but I have utterly no confidence for the second and third years.”

Isoroku Yamamoto was an admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy and an early advocate of naval aviation. His observation of American industry and oil supplies convinced him that Japan had little prospect in a prolonged war, yet once war was chosen he sought a short opening advantage. As commander of the Combined Fleet, he forced through the Pearl Harbor strike to gain time for Japan's southern resource offensive, a choice that produced both tactical success and determined American entry into the war. He continued to command after the defeat at Midway and was killed when U.S. forces intercepted his aircraft in 1943.

Japan state institutions Counter-revolutionary forces 1884–1948 ✕ Executed

A soldier-statesman who steered imperial Japan from northern ambitions toward southern expansion and war

In October 1941, he called the demand for withdrawal the “heart” of the issue and framed concession as surrender.

Hideki Tojo was a military politician who represented the Imperial Japanese Army’s Control Faction and pressed imperial expansion in Manchuria and China. As chief of staff of the Kwantung Army, he escalated operations in northern China while tensions with the Soviet Union remained a strategic concern; later, army priorities shifted from an immediate northern advance toward a southern drive for oil and other resources. As prime minister, he organized Japan for total war against the United States and Britain and suppressed dissent, falling from power as the war situation deteriorated in 1944. Convicted at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, he was executed after the war.