People of the Revolution and the USSR

Germany state institutions Conservatism and Christian democracy 1849–1930 ○ Natural death

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.

Hungary Conservatism and Christian democracy 1861–1918 ✕ Assassinated

Defender of the Dual Monarchy who was Hungary’s wartime prime minister and was killed by soldiers on the day of the Aster Revolution

The son of Kálmán Tisza, prime minister from 1875 to 1890, he grew up in a Calvinist family of untitled lower nobility and studied in Budapest, Heidelberg and Berlin. He entered parliament for the Liberal Party in 1886, was prime minister of Hungary twice, in 1903–1905 and 1913–1917, and Speaker of the House in 1912–1913. The most zealous adherent of the Dual Monarchy with Austria, he opposed universal suffrage and the break-up of the great estates. In July 1914 he alone at first opposed war with Serbia, but in the end supported it. Asked to resign by the reforming King Charles, he stepped down in May 1917. On 31 October 1918, during the Aster Revolution, he was killed by soldiers who broke into his home in Budapest.

Germany state institutions Conservatism and Christian democracy 1878–1964 ○ Natural death

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.

East Germany Conservatism and Christian democracy 1883–1957 ○ Natural death

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.