Leaders of the Third Reich. The fate of the children of Nazi leaders

They fully corresponded to their soul mates and shared their beliefs. But the fates of women were different. Some died along with Hitler's ideology, while others had a long life. For example, Magda Goebbels, when it became clear that Germany had lost, decided to voluntarily die. At the same time, I took the children with me. And the famous "Buchenwald Witch" Ilsa Koch, despite all the atrocities, dared to do this only 22 years after the end of the Second World War.

Hermann and actress Emmy's wedding took place in 1935. Three years later, they had a daughter. Adolf Hitler became her godfather. Since officially Germany did not have a first lady. This "position" was secretly given to Emma. Although Magda Goebbels was a strong competitor in this matter.

At the end of the war, Emmy, along with her daughter Edda, was in American captivity. In 1948 she was convicted. By a court decision, a third of her property was confiscated, she was sentenced to a year in labor camps and banned from performing on stage for five years.

Göring's daughter was baptized by Hitler

In the 60s, the mother and daughter moved to Munich. And in 1967, her book appeared under the title "Near My Husband" ("An der Seite meines Mannes").

Emmy Goering's life ended in 1973, after a long illness.

Gerda did not pay attention to her husband's intrigues on the side. Moreover, when it became known about Martin's romance with actress Behrens, his wife supported their relationship.

Gerda was convinced that National Socialism needed a fundamentally new system of organizing society. A system that would imply a complete ban on monogamy. And in 1944, Gerda encouraged male Germans to enter into several marriages at the same time. Accordingly, she advised the people of Germany to forget such a relic of the past as adultery.

Gerda Bormann advocated the abolition of monogamy

When it became clear that there would be no new world and Germany would lose, Gerda fled to South Tyrol. But she soon died. Since the woman was ill with cancer, she resorted to chemotherapy. The mercury accumulated in the body was the cause of her death. The remaining children of the Bormanovs were adopted by the priest Schmitz.

Ilse's husband, Karl Koch, was the commandant of the Buchenwald and Majdanek concentration camps. And in the "difficult" work he was always supported by his wife. For her zeal and hatred for all prisoners, she was nicknamed the Buchenwald Witch. There was one more nickname - Frau Lampshade. Ilse was charged with making souvenirs from human skin. But no reliable evidence could be found.

For the terrible torture Ilsa was nicknamed the Buchenwald witch

In 1943, the spouses were arrested by representatives of the SS. Karl was accused of killing the doctor Kremer and his assistant, as they were treating him for a venereal disease. And after 2 years, Karl was executed. Ilsa was then acquitted. But already on June 30, 1945, she was in American captivity. And after 2 years she was sentenced to life imprisonment. Several years later, Ilsa was released, but the public revolted. Therefore, in 1951, she was arrested again and sentenced to life imprisonment.

In 1920, Ilsa met Rudolf Hess and joined the NSDAP. They got married 7 years later. Their marriage was also patronized by Hitler. Moreover, he even became godfather son of Hess, Wolf.

As befits a true Aryan, she completely and completely shared the views of her husband. After Rudolph fled to Britain and was arrested there, Ilsa still did not remain without Hitler's support.

Ilsa remained a zealous National Socialist until the end of her days.

On June 3, 1947, she, like other wives of Nazi criminals, was convicted at the Nuremberg trials. After that Ilsa was sent to the camp in Augsburg. But she was soon released.

Ilsa lived a long life, remaining a true National Socialist until her last breath. Ono died in 1995. She was buried beside her husband in the Lutheran cemetery in Wunsiedel. True, in 2011, by decision of the church council, the grave of the Hessians was liquidated.

Magda met Joseph Goebbels in the late 1920s. One day she heard him speak and became very interested in him. Their marriage was patronized by Hitler himself, because Magda's appearance fully corresponded to the Aryan portrait. The leader of the Third Reich decided that it was she who should become the "calling card" of Nazi Germany.

Before her marriage to Goebbels, Magda was already married. She had a son from her first marriage. She gave birth to six more from Joseph. It is curious that the names of all the children began with the letter "X": Harold (from a marriage with Quandt), Helga, Hildegard, Helmut, Holdina, Hedwig, Haidrun.

Magda was against the extermination of the Jews

And although she only partially shared her husband's views (the stumbling block was the policy towards the Jews), Magda supported him in everything. When it became clear that Germany had lost, Goebbels wrote a letter to her eldest son, who was at that time in captivity: “The world that will come after the Fuehrer is not worth living in. Therefore, I take the children with me, leaving it. It is a pity to leave them to live in the life that will come. The merciful God will understand why I decided to take on my own salvation ”.

On May 1, 1945, six of her children were injected with morphine. After that, ampoules with potassium cyanide were placed in their mouths and handed out. Following the children, the Goebbels themselves passed away.

On November 20, 1945, the International Tribunal began work in Nuremberg to try the main Nazi war criminals. Prior to that, for several months, representatives of the victorious powers in World War II (the USSR, the USA, England and France) carefully studied the documents of the German departments, interviewed witnesses of Nazi crimes.

And so the accused were led into the courtroom ...

The man who took the seat on the far left in the front row of the dock had little resemblance to his previous images in the ceremonial portraits. Once upon a time, his chest, hung with orders, was compared to the window of a jewelry store. Now he appeared before an international tribunal, very thin, without shoulder straps and orders. For many years he was the second person after Hitler in the Nazi hierarchy, his official successor. Called

this man Hermann Wilhelm Goering, former Reichsmarschall, former President of the Nazi Reichstag, former Commander of the German Air Force.

Before the tribunal, Goering held himself very firmly. “I protect my face, not my head,” he once snapped. The chance of escaping the death sentence was so small that "number two", apparently, really only cared about what kind of memory he would leave of himself in history.

With his biography, Goering differed from other defendants. He was born in 1893 in Bavaria into the family of the former governor of the largest German colony - German South-West Africa. The Goering were wealthy people who owned two castles in Bavaria and Austria.

Goering met the First World War in the rank of lieutenant of the infantry, then switched to aviation, flew a reconnaissance plane, bomber, became a fighter pilot. For military merit and bravery he was awarded many awards, including the highest German orders of that time. As one of the best pilots of Kaiser's Germany, he was entrusted with the command of the then-famous squadron of Richthofen.

Then he was very popular in Germany, his photographs did not leave the pages of illustrated magazines. But in 1918 the war ended, and "handsome Herman" was included by the victorious powers on the list of war criminals. It turned out that his squadron was dropping bombs on peaceful cities.

Like many front-line officers, Goering did not accept the revolution in Germany (November 1918), which overthrew Kaiser Wilhelm II and proclaimed a bourgeois democratic republic. He declared the surrender of the new German Social Democratic government to the Entente as a shameful act of betrayal. Goering categorically refused to serve in the German Republican Army (Reichswehr) and left for Denmark, and from there to Sweden, where he made a living by demonstration flights commissioned by German aircraft companies.

In 1921 Goering returned to Germany. In Munich, he met and became close friends with Hitler, who instructed him to lead the formation of assault detachments. In this field, Goering was very successful. During the Nazi putsch in Munich on November 8-9, 1923, he led one of the columns of the putschists and was seriously wounded in a skirmish with the police. He managed to avoid arrest - his wife and friends managed to take him to Austria. There he spent a month and a half in the hospital. To relieve the severe pain that the wound caused him, the doctors had to inject him with morphine, as a result of which Goering developed a need for drugs, which took him great efforts to get rid of in the future.

Accused of high treason, Goering decided not to return to Germany. However, when in the fall of 1927 Hindenburg, who had recently been elected President of Germany, announced a political amnesty, Goering immediately went to Bavaria and re-established close contact with Hitler. He instructed him to provide the party with the support of leading industrial and political circles and sent him to Berlin.

In the capital, Goering developed a stormy activity. Unlike other Nazis who tried to "conquer Berlin" at rallies and street fights, he acted at receptions and in salons. Origin, upbringing, erudition, connections - all this distinguished him favorably from other Nazi leaders. Goering managed to establish close relations with leading industrialists and bankers and use these connections in the interests of Hitler and the NSDAP.

In 1928 he was elected to the Reichstag from the Nazi party. Skillful organizer, good

an orator, a skillful tactician, he made a huge contribution to the conquest of power by the Nazis and the establishment of the dictatorship of the NSDAP. Very quickly pushing aside all his political competitors in the party, Goering soon became Hitler's right hand.

Many dark pages in the history of the Nazi regime are associated with the name of Goering. Trial against the Communists in connection with the burning of the Reichstag, the creation of concentration camps and the Nazi security service, the physical destruction of the leadership of the stormtroopers in the summer of 1934, the confiscation of Jewish property, the imposition of indemnities on the Jewish population of Germany after the pogroms that took place in November 1938, the leadership of the economic preparations for the war , the command of the German aviation, which criminally destroyed peaceful cities, the robbery of the occupied countries - for all this and much more, Goering bore personal responsibility.

Unlike many of Hitler's entourage, Goering was not a die-hard Nazi dogmatist. This, however, did not prevent him from always unquestioningly fulfilling the will of the Fuhrer. And Hitler highly appreciated his services. On September 1, 1939, the day Germany declared war on Poland, he appointed him as his official successor, and on July 19, 1940, for the contribution made by Goering's aviation to the defeat of France, he awarded him the highest military rank of Reichsmarshal, which was specially introduced for him.

However, then Goering's position in the Nazi leadership began to gradually weaken, mainly due to the military failures of the air force led by him.

In addition, Goebbels, Himmler and Bormann were increasingly intriguing against Goering, each of whom was aiming at the place of the Fuhrer's successor. As a result, his prestige in the eyes of Hitler, party members and the country's population began to decline. Goering increasingly gave rise to criticism in his address. The Reichsmarschall again began to use drugs, which could not but affect his qualities as a politician and personality. The craving for luxury, which was inherent in him before, took on more and more ugly forms. Rich villas stuffed with looted art, unthinkable toilets that were changed three times a day, buying jewelry - all this looked monstrous against the background of the disasters that the "total war" brought to the German people. The former ace turned into a greedy money-grubber, and his rivals, no longer hesitated, declared that he, with his moral decay, dishonored the National Socialist movement.

At the end of April 1945, when Berlin was surrounded by the Red Army and fighting broke out in its streets, Goering flew to Bavaria and from there attempted to negotiate with the Americans. The Reichsmarshal had a delusional idea that he could achieve a separate peace with the Western powers and, together with them, strike at the Red Army. But Goering's plans were thwarted not by the Americans, but by Hitler, who ordered the SS to arrest the traitor. The Reichsmarshal was rescued from reprisals by the SS by his loyal Luftwaffe officers, to whom he turned for help. On May 9, he voluntarily surrendered to the American command.

Next to Goering in the dock sat another faithful paladin of the Fuhrer - Rudolf Hess. The behavior at the trial of this Nazi leader did not fit in with his appearance. Tall, athletic, with a heavy gaze from deep-set eyes, he sometimes pretended to be mentally ill and defiantly tried to commit suicide, then referred to a complete loss of memory. At the request of the court, doctors carefully examined the defendant and concluded that his actions were "deliberately and intentionally simulative." After that, Hess had no choice but to abandon the version of insanity.

Hess was born in 1894 in Alexandria into the family of a German merchant. He spent his childhood in Egypt, then studied at commercial schools in Switzerland and Germany. During the First World War, he volunteered for the front and served in the same regiment with Hitler, was wounded several times and rose to the rank of lieutenant in the infantry. At the end of the war he went to serve in the aviation.

After the war, Hess decided to continue his business education and for this he moved to Munich. Here he fell under the influence of right-wing radical circles and again met with Hitler. In 1920 he joined the NSDAP. He sincerely adored Hitler and already in the early 1920s. began to create around him the cult of the "great leader of the German nation."

Hess played an active role in the coup of 1923 (see article "Adolf Hitler"). He was entrusted with the seizure of several leaders of the Bavarian Republic as hostages. After the suppression of the putsch, he fled to Austria, but soon returned and was arrested. He was placed in Landsberg prison, in which Hitler was also. In prison, Hess, who had the skills of shorthand, wrote under Hitler's dictation the manuscript of his future book "My Struggle" ("Mein Kampf"), which included many of Hess's own thoughts. From that time on, he began to perform under Hitler, in fact, the duties of a personal secretary.

In 1932, the Fuhrer entrusted his faithful assistant and follower with the leadership of the newly created central party commission of the NSDAP, and in 1933 he appointed him his deputy for the party. As head of the party office, Hess received the minister’s portfolio in the same year.

In Nazi Germany, the power of Hess, Nazi number three, Hitler's official successor (after Goering), was immense. On behalf of Hitler, Hess ran all the affairs of the Nazi Party. By a special decree of Hitler, he was entrusted with control over all activities of the fascist government and other state bodies. Not a single government order, not a single Reich law was in force until they were signed by Hitler or Hess. Hess was entrusted with making decisions on behalf of the Fuehrer, he was declared "the full-fledged representative of the Fuehrer", and his office - "the Fuehrer's own office." With him, Hitler discussed all issues related to both domestic and foreign policy, and for all the crimes of Nazism, Hess was responsible to the same extent as Hitler and Goering.

Hitler trusted Hess completely. Therefore, preparing for an attack on the USSR, he gave him a secret mission of particular importance - to achieve an armistice with the British. On May 10, 1941, Hess flew secretly to Great Britain in a specially equipped fighter plane. However, this mission failed. The British rejected the German proposals, and the world community became aware of Hess's arrival in England. Hitler had no choice but to declare his deputy in the party insane. In England, Hess was arrested, and after the end of the war, in the fall of 1945, he was taken to Nuremberg, where he appeared before the International Tribunal, which tried the main Nazi criminals.

Next on the list of defendants at Nuremberg was Joachim von Ribbentrop, the former foreign minister of Nazi Germany.

At the sessions of the International Tribunal, Ribbentrop behaved very modestly and even ingratiatingly, the first to jump up when the judges entered the hall. He showed with all his appearance how suppressed by the scale of the suffering that befell humanity because of the criminal policy of Nazism. But as soon as the prosecutor reminded the former minister of his personal responsibility, he immediately assumed the pose of an innocent slandered person.

Ribbentrop was born in 1893 in the Rhineland in the family of an officer. After the resignation of his father in 1908, the future Reichsminister lived in Switzerland, worked in England, the USA and Canada. It gave him a certain horizon, life experience and excellent knowledge of French and English languages that Hitler later appreciated so much in him.

With the outbreak of World War I, Ribbentrop left all his business in America, where he headed a small export-import enterprise for the wine trade, and returned to Germany. He volunteered for a hussar regiment, took part in battles on the Eastern and Western fronts, was wounded, awarded the Iron Cross of the first class and rose to the rank of chief lieutenant. At the end of the war, Ribbentrop was used for some time in the diplomatic service.

In 1919 Ribbentrop went into business. A profitable marriage with the daughter of the largest German champagne producer Otto Henkel opened up great prospects for him. By 1925 Ribbentrop was already a successful businessman. His luxurious Berlin mansion was eagerly visited by industrialists, politicians, journalists and cultural figures. Until 1930, Ribbentrop was not involved in politics, although he sympathized with the conservative parties. However, as the economy aggravates,

German Foreign Minister

Ribbentrop and the Foreign Minister

Affairs of Italy Ciano. 1939 g.

As a result of the economic and political crisis that gripped Germany from the end of the 1920s, he began to lean more and more towards the NSDAP. Since 1930, Hitler, Goering, Himmler and other Nazi leaders have become frequent guests at Ribbentrop's house, and in May 1932 he himself joined the NSDAP. In January 1933, Ribbentrop played an extremely important role in ensuring the rise of the Nazis to power. In his house, negotiations were held on the appointment of Hitler as Reich Chancellor between the leaders of the NSDAP, on the one hand, and representatives of President Hindenburg and the right-wing bourgeois parties, on the other. Ribbentrop himself often assumed the role of mediator in these complex negotiations.

For his services, he hoped to get a high post in the German Foreign Ministry. And he got it. Some time after coming to power, Hitler created a special foreign policy body of the NSDAP, which was supposed to operate in parallel with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He put Ribbentrop at its head, and this organ itself was called the "Ribbentrop Bureau". The bureau was gradually filled with people from the SS, and Ribbentrop himself, who was close friends with Himmler, eventually received the very high rank of SS Obergruppenführer (general).

In 1936 Ribbentrop was appointed German ambassador to Great Britain, and in February 1938 - German foreign minister. From that time on, he played an important role in the implementation of the aggressive plans of the Third Reich. There was not a single criminal action by the German military, in the preparation and assistance of which by means of diplomacy Ribbentrop did not take part. The annexation of Austria and the Czech Republic to the German Empire, the attack on Poland, the occupation of Denmark and Norway, Belgium and Holland, the defeat of France, the attack on Yugoslavia and Greece, the aggression against the USSR, the forging of aggressive blocs, the economic robbery of the occupied countries is a measure of Ribbentrop's personal responsibility for all these the crime was enormous.

His ministry played a grim role in the extermination of Jews in occupied and allied countries with Nazi Germany. In particular, in the spring of 1943, Ribbentrop insistently demanded that the Hungarian regent Horthy "bring to the end" the anti-Jewish measures in Hungary. “Jews must be exterminated or exiled to concentration camps - there is no other option,” Ribbentrop emphasized.

Other, purely SS, affairs of the German Foreign Minister were no less criminal. For example, he reprimanded the Italian ambassador for insufficient brutality in the fight against the partisans and insistently advised one and the same "to destroy the gangs, including men, women and children, whose existence threatens the lives of Germans and Italians." Ribbentrop also did not hesitate on the fate of the British and American pilots shot down in the skies of Germany. He strongly insisted that they all be lynched on the spot.

In the first days of May 1945, Ribbentrop managed to escape. He went to Hamburg, where he rented a room in an unremarkable house under the nose of the British military command and led the life of a harmless man in the street. A former companion of Ribbentrop lived in Hamburg, and with his help the fugitive Reichsminister hoped to provide himself with a reliable shelter. However, the son of a companion informed the occupation authorities of his appearance in the city, and on June 14, 1945, Ribbentrop was arrested.

In the dock in Nuremberg, in addition to Goering, Hess and Ribbentrop, there were about two dozen Nazi politicians, diplomats and military men who played a key role in the life of the Third Reich.

Here, next to Ribbentrop, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel is a typical representative of the Prussian military, chief of staff of the German High Command. It was he who gave orders to the troops not to stand on ceremony with the civilian population of the countries attacked by the Wehrmacht, to shoot on the spot all who resist, as well as commissars and Jews.

Next behind him is Ernst Kaltenbrunner, SS Obergruppenfuehrer, head of the Reich's Main Security Directorate (RSHA) and the Security Police, Himmler's closest aide. Directives were issued from his office on the extermination of millions of people in the death camps, on the persecution of all opponents of Nazism.

For Kaltenbrunner - Alfred Rosenberg, Hitler's deputy for "spiritual and ideological training" of members of the Nazi party, Reich Minister for the Occupied eastern territories, one of the "ideological pillars" of National Socialism.

Next to him is Hans Frank - Reichsleiter of the Nazi Party for Legal Affairs, Reich Minister of Justice, Governor General of Poland. At one time, he was Hitler's lawyer at the trial in Munich after the failure of the 1923 coup.

Side by side with Frank - Wilhelm Frick, one of the oldest leaders of the Nazi party, the head of its faction in the Reichstag even before Hitler's seizure of power, then the Minister of the Interior of the Nazi government. He oversaw the development of barbaric racial laws that served as the "legal" basis for the persecution and destruction of entire nations.

Behind Frick is Julius Streicher, a Gauleiter, one of the founders of the NSDAP, an ideologue of anti-Semitism.

Further Walter Funk - Reich Minister of Economy, President of the Reichsbank and General Commissioner for War Economy. Under his leadership, weapons were forged for the Wehrmacht, and his Reichsbank accepted for storage gold rings and dental crowns taken from victims of concentration camps.

Next to him is Hjalmar Schacht, the political representative of the German monopolies and banks under Hitler. Without the money that German industrialists and bankers transferred through this person to the cashier of the NSDAP, there would probably be no Nazi dictatorship, no Wehrmacht armed to the teeth, no World War II.

The second row of defendants is no less representative.

Here are Grand Admirals Karl Doenitz and Erich Raeder - government pirates who have violated all maritime laws and customs, giving orders to sink civilian ships.

Next to them is Baldur von Schirach, organizer and leader of the Nazi youth organization "Hitler Youth", Gauleiter of the NSDAP and the imperial governor in Vienna.

Next to him is Fritz Sauckel, SS Obergruppenfuehrer, General Commissioner for the Use of Labor, who drove millions of people from the occupied countries to forced labor in Germany and did everything to ensure that almost every one of the hijacked was worked out to death.

Behind him are Alfred Jodl, Colonel General, Chief of Staff of the Operational Command of the High Command of the Armed Forces, and Franz von Papen, the former Reich Chancellor who opened the way to Hitler to power, and then the German ambassador to Austria and Turkey.

Next to Papen is Arthur Seyss-Inquart, a prominent figure of the Nazi party, imperial governor in Austria, deputy governor-general of Poland, imperial commissioner for the occupied Netherlands, a man who drowned the Polish and Dutch liberation movements in blood.

Behind him is Albert Speer, a close friend of Hitler, the Reich Minister of Armaments and Ammunition, who created new types of weapons for the German army and supervised the development of missile and nuclear weapons.

And two more - Konstantin von Neurath and Hans Fritsche. The first until 1938 was the German foreign minister and helped Hitler to take the very first steps in his aggressive foreign policy, and then was the Nazi protector of Bohemia and Moravia. The second served as Deputy Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, and directed radio propaganda in the "Third Reich".

But not all Nazi figures who could be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity were in the hall. Hitler and Goebbels committed suicide in a bunker under the building of the Reich Chancellery, the first on April 30, the second on May 1, 1945. Heinrich Himmler, SS Reichsfuehrer, one of the most sinister figures of the Nazi regime, was poisoned on May 23, 1945 by potassium cyanide. During the investigation in the Nuremberg prison, Robert Ley, one of the leaders of the NSDAP, the leader of the Nazi "labor front", hanged himself.

Was not in the dock and Martin Bormann, Hitler's secretary and closest adviser, who headed the NSDAP party office after Hess's flight to England. Bormann was sentenced in absentia. For many years it was believed that he managed to escape from Germany and hide somewhere abroad. Only in the early 70s. convincing evidence was obtained that he could not escape from the surrounded Berlin, and on May 2, 1945, he committed suicide (as

Many Nazi leaders, using potassium cyanide) under the Bridge of Invalids in Berlin.

On October 1, 1946, the International Tribunal at Nuremberg finished its work and sentenced the defendants. 12 of them were sentenced to death by hanging (Goering, Ribbentrop, Keitel, Kaltenbrunner, Rosenberg, Frank, Frick, Streicher, Sauckel, Jodl, Seyss-Inquart, Bormann), 3 - to life imprisonment (Hess, Funk, Raeder) ... Doenitz, Schirach, Speer and Neurath received from 10 to 20 years in prison, and Schacht, Papen, Fritsche, despite the objections of the Soviet judges, were acquitted.

In acquittal of Schacht, his close ties with American industrialists and bankers, as well as the desire of Western judges to remove responsibility for the outbreak of war from the "captains of industry", played an exceptional role. If Schacht had been convicted, he would certainly have told the public in revenge about the role of American capital in arming Germany on the eve of the war and about the ties that were maintained by the German and American monopolies in its years.

As for Fritsche and Papen, in comparison with the other defendants, their guilt was much less, and they could not be charged with the gravest war crimes and conspiracy against peace and humanity. Fritsche was, in general, a small fry in the Nazi political apparatus, and Papen, a representative of the conservative Prussian elite, was not a member of the NSDAP. His close ties with industry and the Catholic Church also appear to have played an important role in Papen's acquittal. It is known, in particular, that before the start of the Nuremberg Trials, the Pope interceded before the American judge for Papen.

On October 16 of the same year, the death sentences handed down by the International Tribunal were carried out. Only Goering escaped the hanging. Two hours before the execution, he committed suicide with the help of potassium cyanide, by whom and how he was transferred to prison.

The convicts who escaped the death sentence were placed in Berlin's Spandau prison. However, already in 1954, Neurath was pardoned, and in 1957-1958. - Funk and Raeder, sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1956, Doenitz was released after serving his sentence, and in 1966 Speer and Schirach were released. Only Rudolf Hess remained in prison. A sharp political struggle unfolded around him in the following years. Right forces in the FRG and others Western countries began to insist on his pardon. However, the victorious powers refused to commute the sentence. Hess remained in prison until his death on August 17, 1987. With his death, the last page of the life of the political leaders of the Third Reich was closed.

BURNING OF REICHSTAG

At 9 pm on February 27, 1933, the 24-year-old Dutch anarchist Marinus van der Lubbe entered the Reichstag and, using special incendiary devices, set fire to a large conference room in several places. The fire quickly engulfed the premises, and the firefighters, who arrived at the scene half an hour later, could no longer cope with the flame that shot up to the very dome of the building. Hitler and other Nazi leaders immediately declared the burning of the Reichstag to be the work of the Communists, who allegedly wanted to use this action to signal an uprising against the Nazi government. According to the lists prepared in advance, about 4 thousand leading figures of the Communist Party of Germany were immediately arrested, and the KKE itself was deprived of all deputy mandates in the Reichstag. This was followed by mass arrests of rank-and-file communists. The KKE was almost completely defeated. Those of its members who survived and did not come to terms with Nazism, went into an illegal position and led the fight underground.

Who benefits from the burning of the Reichstag? The systematic rout after him of the Communist Party - the main enemy of the NSDAP - suggests that it was primarily in the interests of the Nazi leadership. The opinion has been repeatedly expressed that the Nazis themselves staged this arson, using van der Lubbe only as a figurehead. This is supported by the fact that an underground passage led from Goering's residence to the Reichstag, which could have been used for provocation. And it’s hard to imagine that one person could set fire to such a huge building. However, during the process of the Reichstag arson, which took place in Leipzig in September-December 1933, neither the Nazi leaders nor the Communists who were on trial could provide convincing evidence that van der Lubbe did not act alone: ​​the Nazis could not prove the involvement of the communists, the communists - the participation of the Nazis. After the war, the question of setting fire to the Reichstag was thoroughly investigated by an international commission headed by the famous Swiss historian Hofer, but it also failed to refute the version of the sole responsibility of the Dutch anarchist.

The Nazi elite tried to turn the process of setting fire to the Reichstag into a show trial of the German communists and leaders of the Communist International who were in Germany at that time (Georgy Dimitrov and others). At this trial, Goering was the main witness. However, the plans of the Nazis failed. Dimitrov and his comrades not only denied all the charges against them, but also used the court session to expose Nazism. The court was forced to fully acquit them.

Van der Lubbe was sentenced to death. On January 10, 1934, the Nazis carried it out. In the post-war period, the van der Lubbe case was tried several times by West German courts. In 1967, it was finally recognized that the punishment was too harsh.

Annex 1

Key figures

Adolf Gitler(1889-1945) In January 1945, when the Soviet army entered Germany, Hitler left his residence in East Prussia and returned to Berlin, to the Reich Chancellery. In April, he moved underground into a bomb shelter for the Chancellery officials - a dimly lit bunker with thick walls of high-quality concrete.

In the last months of his life, Hitler's health deteriorated sharply. He was operated on in February vocal cords who could not stand the screams of many years. After the operation, Hitler had to be silent for a whole week.

The Fuhrer refused to leave Berlin. Realizing that the war was indeed lost, he decided to commit suicide.

Hitler looked much older than his 56 years: he shuffled his feet, hunched over, his left arm was shaking all the time - perhaps he had progressed Parkinson's disease. The Fuhrer's right eye almost completely ceased to see, and he daily treated him with cocaine drops. Hitler fell out with many of his associates, in particular with Goering and Himmler, and only Goebbels remained faithful to him to the end.

April 20, 1945 Adolf Hitler in last time celebrated his birthday. He is 56 years old. He went out into the garden of the Reich Chancellery, where 20 boys from the Hitler Youth were waiting for him, lined up in a row. Putting his shaking hand behind his back, the Fuhrer shook hands with each of them, said a couple of words to them and patted the last, the smallest, on the cheek. He made a short speech, thanking the boys for their bravery, and walked back to the bunker. This was the last public speech of Adolf Hitler.

On April 29, Hitler was married to Eva Braun, with whom he lived all these years. The wedding ceremony took no more than 10 minutes. Eva Braun was 23 years younger than Hitler, and ordinary Germans did not know anything about her, although for the Nazi elite, Hitler's mistress was not a secret. The people, however, should not have known anything about Eva Braun, so that the women of Germany could still adore the Fuhrer.

At night, Hitler dictated a will to his secretary and appointed a government to represent Germany after his death. Admiral Karl Doenitz became Hitler's successor - the president, but not the Fuhrer.

On April 29, when the Russians were 300 meters away from the bunker, Hitler prepared to commit suicide. He ordered the delivery of cans of gasoline and insisted that his body be burned, since he did not want his corpse to be "an exhibit in the Soviet cabinet of curiosities." And the effectiveness of the just-brought capsules with cyanide was tested on the beloved Blondie shepherd dog.

The next day, April 30, Goebbels tried for the last time to persuade the Fuehrer to leave Berlin.

At about four o'clock, having said goodbye to his entourage, Hitler and the woman, who had recently become his wife, retired to his office. Hitler attached the Iron Cross of the 1st degree to his tunic and Chest sign"For injury" received in the First World War. A shot rang out. Hitler shot himself in the right temple, Eva Braun swallowed cyanide.

Their bodies, wrapped in blankets, were taken to the garden of the Reich Chancellery. Artillery rumbled all around, and neighboring buildings were on fire. In this situation, Hitler's last wish was fulfilled: 200 liters of gasoline were poured onto the corpses, someone threw a match, and the flames engulfed the bodies.

Ernst Rem(1887–1934) After serving as captain in World War I, Rem joined the Freikors and helped the Weimar Republic maintain order in the turbulent post-war years.

Rem met Hitler shortly after the creation of the Nazi party, retired and was appointed head of the SA - assault squads.

After the appointment of Hitler as Reich Chancellor, Remu began to feel that the storm troops were not rewarded for bringing the Nazis to power. The stormtroopers started talking about the "second revolution" led by Rem. These conversations alarmed industrialists and businessmen whom Hitler managed to charm. Rem also wanted to join the army with the SA under his command, which in turn worried the military.

The brutality of the stormtroopers, which Hitler had encouraged in the past, became a hindrance. SA propaganda began to undermine the country's stability, and Hindenburg threatened to impose martial law if Hitler did not take control.

Hitler struck on the night of Saturday to Sunday (June 30 - July 1, 1934), the "night of the long knives." SS members broke into a hotel in the village of Bad Wiessee, where stormtroopers had gathered to have fun over the weekend, and arrested Rem and his supporters. The stormtroopers were soon executed, including Rem, who refused to commit suicide and was shot.

Paul von Hindenburg(1847-1934) Hindenburg fought in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. and first retired in 1911. In 1914 he was recalled from retirement. It was thanks to Hindenburg that the German army won victories on the Eastern Front during the First World War.

In 1925, Hindenburg was elected president of the Weimar Republic, and in 1932 he was re-elected to this post, defeating the Nazi candidate. Despite the growing popularity of the Nazi party, Hindenburg initially defied calls to invite Hitler into the coalition government. However, Franz von Papen managed to convince Hindenburg, he surrendered and in January 1933 appointed Hitler as chancellor. At the end of his life, Hindenburg's health deteriorated greatly, and he stopped taking Active participation in the life of the state.

A month after Hitler's election, the Reichstag building was set on fire, and Hindenburg allowed the Chancellor to restrict the constitution - temporarily until the internal threat wears off (Hitler never lifted this restriction).

Hindenburg died in August 1934 at the age of 86.

Joseph Goebbels(1897-1945) In his youth, Goebbels flirted with communism, but later became a staunch Nazi and kept personal loyalty to Hitler. Judging by the diaries of Goebbels, although he was a puny lame man, he possessed a considerable, albeit perverse, intellect. In 1921 he became a doctor of philosophy.

After coming to power, Hitler appointed Goebbels minister of propaganda. Goebbels succeeded in this post - he controlled all the German media.

When the war turned against Germany, Goebbels' loyalty did not diminish in the least, and in his addresses to the nation he called on the Germans to fight the enemy even more stubbornly.

Goebbels did not want his children to live in post-Nazi Germany. On the day of Hitler's suicide, Goebbels and his wife Magda poisoned their six children and then committed suicide.

Heinrich Himmler(1900-1945) This short man with rimless glasses made everyone fearful. After serving in the army during the First World War, Himmler raised chickens for a time, after which he joined the Nazis and took part in the Munich putsch of 1923. Hitler put him in charge of the SS, and from 1934 Himmler led the Nazi security organs. He played a key role in eliminating Hitler's opponents during the Night of the Long Knives.

During the war, Himmler was responsible for coordinating the systematic extermination of Jews and other victims of the Nazi regime. When the war turned against Germany, he tried to negotiate with the Western allies, persuading them to form a united front with Germany against Soviet Union... Hitler branded Himmler as a traitor and stripped him of all titles and positions.

After Germany's surrender, Himmler disguised himself as a police officer in the hope of avoiding capture. He was arrested by the British. Without waiting for the trial, Himmler committed suicide by biting through a capsule of poison.

Hermann Goering(1893–1946) In World War I, Goering was a brave fighter pilot. He joined the Nazi Party in 1922 and was wounded a year later during the Munich putsch, and after that failure he took refuge in Austria for four years.

Goering helped Hitler destroy the stormtroopers during the Night of the Long Knives. In 1935 he was appointed Commander of the Luftwaffe. The following year, Goering also became the Minister of Economy. Goering's economic talents were dubious, but it was he who, at the suggestion of Hitler, introduced the "four-year plan" to prepare Germany for war as soon as possible.

Goering's power fluctuated with the successes and failures of the Luftwaffe. The successes of the German Air Force during the Polish and French campaigns in the first year of World War II gave way to defeats at the Battle of Britain and at Stalingrad. When the Luftwaffe failed to prevent the bombing German cities, Goering lost his former influence on the Fuhrer.

Goering was tried at Nuremberg and sentenced to be hanged. He asked to replace the gallows with a firing squad in order to die "the death of a soldier", but was refused. Two hours before his execution, he committed suicide by ingesting a secretly given poison to him.

Franz von Papen(1879-1969) In 1932, President Hindenburg appointed Papen Reich Chancellor. In the elections in July of the same year, Papen's authority was undermined by the success of the Nazi party, for which 40% of the electorate voted. Papen offered Hitler a ministerial portfolio, but the Nazi leader rejected the offer.

The next elections, held in November 1932, cost Papen the seat of Reich Chancellor. But his successor, Schleicher, also failed to enlist the support of the majority in the Reichstag, and Papen invited Hitler to become Reich Chancellor. He himself applied for the post of vice-chancellor.

Papen proposed this option to Hindenburg, assuring that Hitler would be easier to curb in the government. Real power, Papen argued, would remain in his hands. Hindenburg eventually agreed, and in January 1933 Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor and Papen became his deputy.

Papen failed to put his plan into practice - he could not curb Hitler. In June 1934, he criticized the brutality of the storm troopers.

Papen was lucky - he was not killed during the "night of the long knives." After resigning from the post of vice-chancellor, he accepted an offer to become the German ambassador to Austria, where he played a role under the Anschluss.

Papen was tried in Nuremberg and sentenced to eight years in prison, but released two years later.

Benito Mussolini(1883-1945) Mussolini was a school teacher and journalist. During the First World War, he was wounded. Mussolini held socialist views and founded the Fascist Party after the war.

In 1922, when Italy was on the verge of a civil war between right-wing radicals and communists, Mussolini demanded that power be transferred to the fascist government. Italian king Victor Emmanuel III, wanting to avoid conflict, invited Mussolini to Rome to form a government. This event went down in history as the March to Rome.

In 1924, the Fascist Party won the elections, and two years later Mussolini ruled the country as a dictator, a "Duce" who suppressed all opposition and dissent.

Initially, Mussolini opposed German Nazism, especially when Hitler claimed the rights to Austria. Mussolini was friends with the head of Austria, Engelbert Dollfuss, and after the assassination of Dollfuss in 1934, he promised Austria his support.

When the international community condemned the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, Mussolini became close to Hitler, and in 1936 the two countries formed an axis.

Italy entered the war only in June 1940, but its military campaigns in Greece and North Africa turned out to be a failure and demanded German intervention.

In July 1943, the Allies invaded Italy. The king summoned Mussolini, who could no longer hope for Hitler's support, deprived him of his post, arrested and thrown him in prison. Italy went over to the side of the Allies.

In mid-September, by order of Hitler, Mussolini was released from prison, brought to Germany and then returned to Italy as the puppet head of the fascist republic in Northern Italy.

Towards the end of the war, Mussolini, along with his mistress Clara Petacci and several followers, tried to flee to Switzerland. They were caught by Italian partisans. Mussolini was in the uniform of a Luftwaffe pilot, but he was exposed and on April 28, 1945, he was shot along with Clara Petacci on Lake Como. The bodies were taken to Milan, disfigured, desecrated and hung out for all to see.

Neville Chamberlain(1869-1940) In the 20-30s. Chamberlain was Minister of Health and Chancellor of the Treasury in the Conservative Party government. In May 1937 he took the place of the resigned Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin.

Chamberlain pursued a policy of appeasing Germany - he believed that Hitler's claims were generally justified. Having put an end to the Czechoslovak crisis through negotiations, Chamberlain was convinced that Hitler was completely satisfied with the solution he had found, and thanks to their joint efforts, the "era of peace" began.

The next crisis, in Poland, proved how much the British Prime Minister underestimated Hitler when he tried to appease him. Chamberlain was quick to offer Poland guarantees that in the event of an attack by Germany, Great Britain would come to her aid. He kept his word: when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Great Britain declared war on it.

The Chamberlain government was heavily criticized for organizing the Norwegian campaign, and after the surrender of Norway and Denmark, Chamberlain, unable to form a coalition government, was forced to resign. He was succeeded in May 1940 by Winston Churchill.

Chamberlain was by that time seriously ill. He died six months later.

Key characters in the Altaussee Max Eder - engineer Glinz - district inspector who worked for Eigruber Otto Högler - chief engineer of the mine Eberhard Mayerhofer - engineer, technical director of the salt mine Hermann Michel - former director of the Vienna Museum of Natural

Appendix 1. Key Figures Three Monarchs British King George V, German Kaiser Wilhelm II and Russian Emperor Nicholas II were relatives, but met only twice. They all turned out to be weak monarchs. Kaiser Wilhelm II Arrogant, extremely

Appendix 1. Key figures Andrei Andreevich Zhdanov (1896–1948) State and party leader of the USSR in the 1930–1940s. Colonel General. From 1934 - Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and First Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee and the City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). From 1939 (from the XVIII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks) to death - a member