German admiral who built the High Seas Fleet to rival the Royal Navy, set off a naval arms race and urged unrestricted U-boat war
Born in Küstrin in Brandenburg, the son of a lawyer, he was State Secretary of the Imperial Naval Office from 1897 to 1916 and turned the modest Imperial Navy into a world-class force that could threaten the Royal Navy. The Fleet Acts of 1898–1912, built on his “risk theory”, gave Germany the second-largest navy in the world, but started a costly naval arms race and pushed Britain closer to France. He saw sea power as a “palliative against” the Social Democrats. When the High Seas Fleet could not break Britain’s blockade, he became an outspoken advocate of unrestricted submarine warfare, and resigned in March 1916. In 1917 he co-founded and chaired the far-right Fatherland Party, which opposed a negotiated peace, and after the war sat in the Reichstag for the German National People’s Party. He died in 1930.
Career timeline
- 1897–1916State Secretary of the Imperial Naval Office
- 1898–1912Built the High Seas Fleet through the Fleet Acts
- 1917Co-founder and chairman of the German Fatherland Party
- 1924–1928Reichstag deputy for the DNVP
General who directed Germany’s war with Hindenburg and later joined Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch
Born to a commoner family in the Province of Posen, he served on the General Staff and won fame at Liège and Tannenberg in 1914. In August 1916 he and Hindenburg took over the Supreme Army Command; as First Quartermaster General he directed the war under a de facto military dictatorship and drove the Hindenburg Programme. His spring offensive, opened with Operation Michael in March 1918, failed; in September he demanded an immediate armistice and in October he was dismissed. After the war he spread the stab-in-the-back myth and took part in the Kapp Putsch of 1920 and Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. He sat in the Reichstag for the National Socialist Freedom Movement in 1924–1928 and died in Munich in 1937.
Career timeline
- 1914Liège and Tannenberg
- 1916–1918First Quartermaster General
- 1918Spring offensive (Operation Michael); dismissed in October
- 1920Took part in the Kapp Putsch
- 1923Took part in the Beer Hall Putsch
- 1924–1928Reichstag deputy (NSFB)
Social Democratic chancellor whose government accepted the Treaty of Versailles under an Allied ultimatum
Born in Darkehmen in the Province of Prussia, he worked as a lawyer’s clerk, co-founded the office employees’ union and was second chairman of the General Commission of Trade Unions from 1908 to 1918. Elected to the Reichstag for the SPD in 1912, he became labour secretary in Max von Baden’s cabinet in October 1918. When Scheidemann resigned in protest at the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919, Bauer, until then a vocal critic of the treaty, succeeded him and got it through the National Assembly. His government carried out tax reform and extended social insurance, but was forced out in March 1920 over the negotiations conducted with the Kapp putschists. He was later vice-chancellor and treasury minister, and the Barmat corruption scandal cost him his seat in 1925. He died in Berlin in 1944.
Career timeline
- 1908–1918Second chairman of the General Commission of Trade Unions
- 1912Reichstag deputy (SPD)
- 1918Labour secretary
- 1919–1920Chancellor of Germany
- 1921–1922Vice-chancellor and treasury minister
Weimar chancellor who ended passive resistance in 1923 and, as foreign minister, concluded the Locarno treaties
Born in Berlin, he entered the Reichstag for the National Liberals in 1907 and during the war backed annexations and unrestricted submarine warfare. After the defeat he founded the German People’s Party and came to accept the republic. Chancellor and foreign minister from August 1923, he ended passive resistance in the Ruhr, used the army to remove the Saxon and Thuringian governments that included Communists, and halted hyperinflation with the Rentenmark. Ousted by a no-confidence vote in November, he remained foreign minister until his death, shaping the Dawes Plan, the Locarno treaties and entry into the League of Nations, and shared the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize. He died of a stroke in 1929.
Career timeline
- 1907Reichstag deputy (National Liberal Party)
- 1917Leader of the National Liberal Party
- 1918Founded the German People’s Party
- 1923Chancellor and foreign minister
- 1923–1929Foreign minister
- 1925Locarno Treaties
- 1926Nobel Peace Prize
Weimar finance minister who founded the CDU in the Soviet zone in 1945 and was deposed for opposing the land reform
The son of a Cologne railway worker, he studied agriculture and from 1911 worked at the International Institute of Agriculture in Rome. A member of the Catholic Centre Party, he became Minister of Food in 1920 and was Minister of Finance from 1922 until the Cuno cabinet resigned in August 1923. Arrested after the Nazis took power, he later served as an economic adviser to the government of Colombia. Back in Germany he joined the resistance around Goerdeler, was arrested after 20 July 1944 and sentenced to death in January 1945, but his wife delayed the execution until the Red Army took Berlin. On 26 June 1945 he became the first chairman of the CDU of Berlin and the Soviet zone; because he refused to agree to the land reform without compensation, SMAD deposed him in December. In the West he founded the German Farmers’ Association and argued for reunification.
Career timeline
- 1911–1914Department director at the International Institute of Agriculture, Rome
- 1920Reich Minister of Food
- 1922–1923Reich Minister of Finance
- 1945Sentenced to death by a Nazi court
- 1945Chairman of the CDU in the Soviet zone; deposed in December
- 1948President of the German Farmers’ Association
Kaiser’s successor at the head of the East German CDU, who brought it into line with the SED as deputy prime minister
Born in Frohburg in Saxony, he worked as a journalist, moved through the left-liberal parties, helped found the German Democratic Party in 1918, and sat in the Weimar National Assembly and the Prussian Landtag. He joined the opposition after 1933 and went into hiding after the 1944 attempt on Hitler’s life. In 1945 he co-founded the CDU in the Soviet zone; when the Soviet authorities deposed Jakob Kaiser and Ernst Lemmer in 1947 he became acting chairman, and chairman in 1948. As a co-chairman of the German People’s Council he took part in drafting the GDR constitution, and in 1949 became deputy prime minister and head of the Church Office. A loyal supporter of the SED regime, he pushed out CDU members unwilling to follow the Communists. He died in 1957.
Career timeline
- 1918Co-founder of the German Democratic Party
- 1921–1933Member of the Prussian Landtag
- 1945Co-founder of the CDU in the Soviet zone
- 1948–1957Chairman of the East German CDU
- 1949–1957GDR deputy prime minister and head of the Church Office
First East German justice minister, dismissed and imprisoned in 1953 after opposing the prosecution of striking workers
A toolmaker from Berlin, he joined the SPD in 1910 and sat in the Prussian Landtag from 1928 to 1933. Under the Nazis he took part in a resistance group and was twice imprisoned. After the war he supported the forced merger of the SPD and KPD, sat on the SED’s Central Committee, and in October 1949 became the GDR’s first Minister of Justice. In the trial of the Gladow gang he had adult criminal law applied unlawfully so that a death sentence was possible. In an interview with Neues Deutschland on 30 June 1953 he said that members of the 17 June strike leadership would not be punished on mere suspicion; denounced as an “enemy of the state and the party”, he was dismissed, expelled and arrested, and sentenced to eight years. Released and pardoned in 1956, readmitted to the party in 1958, he died in 1973.
Career timeline
- 1910Joined the SPD
- 1928–1933Member of the Prussian Landtag
- 1949–1953GDR Minister of Justice
- 1953Dismissed, expelled and arrested
- 1956Released and pardoned
- 1958Readmitted to the SED
SED Politburo member and chairman of the Central Party Control Commission who stood by Ulbricht in 1953
Born in Burg, the son of a Social Democratic worker, he worked as a tanner and left the SPD when it voted for war loans. He went through the USPD into the KPD and led its Magdeburg and East Prussia districts. Arrested in 1933, he escaped and went into exile, joining the National Committee for a Free Germany in the Soviet Union. He returned in 1945 with Anton Ackermann’s group and until 1946 was first secretary of the KPD in Saxony. From 1948 until his death he chaired the SED’s Central Party Control Commission, responsible for party discipline, and was a Politburo member and vice-president of the People’s Chamber. After the 1953 uprising, when a Politburo majority wanted to remove Ulbricht, he and Honecker alone stayed loyal. He died in East Berlin in 1971.
Career timeline
- 1918Joined the USPD; workers’ and soldiers’ council
- 1931–1933KPD political leader in East Prussia
- 1945–1946First secretary of the KPD in Saxony
- 1948–1971Chairman of the SED Central Party Control Commission
- 1950–1971Politburo member
Higher SS and Police Leader who directed the mass shootings at Kamianets-Podilskyi, Babi Yar and Rumbula
The son of a textile factory owner in Hornberg in the Black Forest, he fought as an officer in the First World War. He joined the Nazi Party in 1929 and the SS in 1930, and from 1933 was police president and head of the political police in Brunswick. Chosen by Himmler in June 1941 as Higher SS and Police Leader for southern Russia and Ukraine, he controlled all Einsatzgruppen killings in his area and used his method in the mass shootings at Kamianets-Podilskyi (23,600 killed) and Babi Yar (33,771 killed). Moved to Ostland in November with orders to complete the extermination of Riga’s Jews, he watched over two days as 25,000 people were killed at Rumbula. Taken prisoner fighting the Red Army in April 1945, he was sentenced to death at the Riga trial and hanged in Riga on 3 February 1946.
Career timeline
- 1914–1918German army officer and pilot
- 1929–1930Joined the Nazi Party and the SS
- 1932–1945Reichstag deputy
- 1933–1938Police president and head of political police, Brunswick
- 1941Higher SS and Police Leader, southern Russia and Ukraine
- 1941–1944Higher SS and Police Leader, Ostland
- 1946Sentenced at the Riga trial and executed
SPD leader who survived ten years in Nazi camps and, after the war, refused the merger with the Communists
Born in Kulm in West Prussia, he lost his right arm in the First World War and joined the SPD in 1918. As a member of the Württemberg Landtag and the Reichstag he fought the Nazis. Arrested in July 1933, he refused to sign a renunciation of political activity and spent ten years in concentration camps. In 1945 he rebuilt the party from Hanover, rejected the merger with the Communists urged by Otto Grotewohl in the Soviet zone, and called the KPD “red-painted Nazis”. Elected SPD chairman in 1946 and the Bundestag’s first leader of the opposition in 1949, he called for the nationalisation of heavy industry and a united Germany and opposed Adenauer’s integration with the West. He died in Bonn in 1952.
Career timeline
- 1918Joined the SPD
- 1930–1933Reichstag deputy
- 1933–1943Held in Nazi concentration camps
- 1946–1952SPD chairman
- 1949–1952Leader of the opposition in the Bundestag
Communist who ran an anti-fascist sabotage network before the war and headed the Stasi from 1953 to 1957
Born in Münden in the Province of Hanover, he took part in the sailors’ revolt of 1918, joined the KPD in 1919 and led party military wings; he sat in the Reichstag in 1932–1933. In exile he organised the “Wollweber League” in 1936–1940, which carried out 21 known acts of sabotage against ships of fascist nations, and supplied arms to the Spanish Republicans. Back in Germany in 1946 he ran shipping administration. In July 1953, when Zaisser was removed and the Ministry for State Security was downgraded to a State Secretariat, he became its head, and in November 1955 Minister of State Security again. He clashed with Ulbricht and Honecker and sided with Schirdewan, resigned in 1957, and in 1958 was removed from the Central Committee for “factional activity”. He died in East Berlin in 1967.
Career timeline
- 1918Took part in the sailors’ revolt
- 1932–1933KPD Reichstag deputy
- 1936–1940Organised the Wollweber League sabotage network
- 1953–1955State Secretary of State Security
- 1955–1957Minister of State Security
- 1958Removed from the Central Committee
East German heavy-industry minister who faced the striking workers outside the House of Ministries on 16 June 1953
The son of a coppersmith from Lauterbach in Hesse, he was working underground at seventeen, served in the First World War and in 1918 sat on a soldiers’ council. He joined the USPD in 1920 and the KPD in 1922, becoming the party’s political secretary in Saxony and a Reichstag deputy. Arrested in 1933, he survived the Nazi years in prisons and in concentration camps including Sachsenhausen and Flossenbürg. After the war he was Saxony’s minister for economics and planning, then deputy chairman of the German Economic Commission, and in the GDR minister of industry and of heavy industry. On 16 June 1953 he walked into the crowd outside the House of Ministries and tried to address it from a desk, but was whistled down. In 1958 Ulbricht pushed him out of his offices for a “deviant attitude”, and he turned to writing. He died in East Berlin in 1975.
Career timeline
- 1922Joined the KPD
- 1932–1933Reichstag deputy
- 1933–1945Imprisoned; held in Sachsenhausen and Flossenbürg
- 1948–1949Deputy chairman of the German Economic Commission
- 1949–1955Minister of Industry, then of Heavy Industry
- 1958Pushed out of office for a “deviant attitude”
Exiled SPD functionary who succeeded Schumacher as SPD leader and leader of the West German opposition
Born in Magdeburg, the son of a bricklayer, he joined the SPD in 1918 and led the Socialist Workers’ Youth. In May 1933 he went into exile in Prague with the party executive, helped form the exiled SPD (Sopade), and by way of Paris and Lisbon spent the war in London. Returning in February 1946, he worked in Kurt Schumacher’s office in Hanover and that year became his deputy, running the party organisation and its international contacts. After Schumacher’s death in 1952 he became party chairman, parliamentary leader and leader of the opposition. He lost to Adenauer as candidate for chancellor in 1953 and 1957, and backed the 1959 Godesberg Programme, with which the SPD broke with Marxism. He died in Bonn in 1963.
Career timeline
- 1918Joined the SPD
- 1928Chairman of the Socialist Workers’ Youth
- 1933Exile in Prague; member of the exiled SPD executive
- 1946SPD deputy chairman
- 1952–1963SPD chairman and leader of the opposition
East German chemist who survived a Nazi death sentence and later, expelled from the SED, became a dissident under house arrest
Born in Munich, he studied chemistry in Munich and Berlin and took a doctorate in physical chemistry at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. A founder of the resistance group European Union, he was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 and sentenced to death, but his execution was repeatedly postponed on the grounds that his research was needed, and he survived. After the war he headed Berlin’s Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes until the Americans dismissed him; in 1950 he became professor of physical chemistry at the Humboldt University, a member of the Volkskammer and of the German Peace Committee. On 16 June 1953 he faced the crowd outside the House of Ministries with Fritz Selbmann. His 1963–64 lectures, published as “Dialectics without Dogma”, cost him his party membership and his chair. After protesting Wolf Biermann’s expatriation in 1976 he was put under house arrest. He died in Grünheide in 1982.
Career timeline
- 1932Joined the KPD
- 1943Arrested by the Gestapo and sentenced to death
- 1950Professor of physical chemistry at the Humboldt University
- 1950–1963Member of the Volkskammer
- 1964Expelled from the SED
- 1976–1979House arrest in Grünheide
