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 1890–1967 ○ Died in Australia

General who as prime minister in August–October 1944 halted the Jewish deportations and prepared an armistice until the Arrow Cross coup

Born in Budapest, he graduated from the Ludovika Academy in 1910 and in 1919 served at the Hungarian Red Army’s headquarters before joining Horthy’s National Army. Military attaché in Prague from 1928 to 1934, he commanded the Second Army from 1943 and the First Army from April 1944. Recommended by István Bethlen, he succeeded Sztójay as prime minister on 29 August 1944 with a secret mandate to prepare an armistice; his government stopped the deportation of Jews and replaced the state secretaries responsible. When Operation Panzerfaust and the Arrow Cross coup thwarted the armistice on 15 October, he negotiated through the night with Veesenmayer, then urged Horthy to surrender; forced to resign, he was imprisoned by the Germans. Never prosecuted, he lost his pension and lands, and in 1965 joined his daughter in Adelaide, where he died in 1967.

United Kingdom state institutions Conservatism and Christian democracy 1917–2001 ○ Natural causes

A Greece expert at the boundary of resistance and empire

After the 1942 Gorgopotamos operation, he stayed in Greece rather than evacuating, building the mission that linked the resistance to Cairo.

Christopher Montague Woodhouse was a British army officer, SOE and MI6 operative, and historian of Greek politics. In occupied Greece he helped establish and later led the British Military Mission, maintaining contact with ELAS and EDES while linking the resistance to Allied strategy. His work also reveals the tension between military cooperation with a broad resistance and Britain's effort to restore the monarchy and preserve its influence after liberation. He later served as an MP and wrote extensively on modern Greece.