KEY FIGURES

Question 1

Ernst Röhm

Answer 1

• Captain in WWI
• Joined Freikorps.
• Met Hilter in 1919 and recruited him to infiltrate the German Workers Party and helped set up the SA.
• Took part in Beer Hall Putsch.
• Took control of SA in 1930 and turned it into a fighting force with radical views
• He was homosexual- source of embarrassement to Hitler after Nazis took power in 1933

Question 2

Heinrich Himmler

Answer 2

• Leader of SS since 1929.
• After Hitler came to power, he extended his power, gradually taking control over police forces and running concentration camps.
• SS were responsible for rounding up and killing Jews in occupied countries.

Question 3

Martin Niemöller

Answer 3

• Protestant pastor.
• Although at first he welcomed Nazi leadership he opposed efforts to poloticise the Evangelical Church.
• He was anti-Semitic but opposed the adoption of the Aryan paragraph bc he believed Jews should be welcomed into the Christian faith.
• Co-founder of Confessional Church

Question 4

General Werner von Fritsch

Answer 4

• Army Commander in chief in 1934
• Anti-semite and anti-democrat
• Helped Hilter gain support to succeed Hindenburg as president in 1934.
• Critical of regime when he realised the SS was becoming an army rival and bc he feared Germany wasn’t ready for war.
• Forced to resign in 1938 after being accused of being homosexual

Question 5

Robert Ley

Answer 5

• Joined Nazi Party in 1924 and elected to the Reichstag in 1930.
• Leader of DAF in 1933

Question 6

Ludwig Müller

Answer 6

• Protestant pastor associated with the Nazis since the 1920s
• Appointed as Reich Bishop by the Nazis.

Question 7

Dr Philipp Bouhler

Answer 7

• Appointed head of Hitler’s party office in 1933, handling internal correspondance
• He influenced Hitler’s decision to introduce the euthanasia programme, known as the T4 programme in 1939.
• He was one of the chief architects od the killings, together with Dr Karl Brandt

Question 8

Dr Karl Brandt

Answer 8

• together with Dr Philipp Bouhler chief architect of T4 programme.

Question 9

Reinhard Heydrich

Answer 9

• Leader of SD
• Most important senior commander after Himmler.
• Used Austria after Anschluss as a laboratory for developing SS policy.
• In 1941 he was responsible for coordinating the ‘final solution’ .

Question 10

Adolf Eichmann

Answer 10

• Rose to prominance in the Race Resettlement Unit of the SS
• Involved in planning of Jewish emigration to Palestine but later became one of thr architects of the ‘final solution’

Question 11

What is the difference between SA, SS. SD and Gestapo?

Answer 11

SA: Original paramilitary wing of Nazi Party

SS: Originally Hitler’s bodyguards, then size dramatically increased: the elite corps of the Nazi Party.
- rivalry with SA and many remaining SA members after Night of the Lonf Knives were absorbed into SS.

SD: security service, part of SS, in charge of foreign and domestic intelligence.

Gestapo: Secret state police