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Key Axis Figures
Joseph Goebbels

(1897-1945), German propagandist and politician, born in Rheydt, and educated at the universities of Bonn, Berlin, and Heidelberg. He joined the National Socialist (Nazi) party in 1922 and began directing the students who entered the organization. In 1925 Goebbels met the party leader Adolf Hitler.

In 1926 he as made gauleiter, or party leader, for the region of Berlin, and in 1927 he founded and became editor of the official National Socialist periodical Der Angriff (The Attack).

He was elected to the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1928 and a year later was chosen as propaganda leader of the Nazi party, in which capacity he became the apostle of unreasoning hatred of the Jews and other "non-Ayran" groups such as the Slavs.

His work as a propagandist materially aided Hitler's rise to power in 1933. In that year, Goebbels was appointed Reichsminister for propaganda and national enlightenment. From then until his death, Goebbels used all media of education and communications to further Nazi propagandistic aims, instilling in the Germans the concept of their leader as a veritable god and of their destiny as the rulers of the world.

In 1938 he became a member of the Hitler cabinet council. Late in World War II, in 1944, Hitler placed him in charge of total mobilization. On May 1, 1945, as Soviet troops were storming Berlin, Goebbels committed suicide. The Goebbels Diary for 1942-43, found among his papers, was published in English in 1948.

Hermann Göring

(1893-1946), also spelled Goering, German field marshal, commander in chief of the German air force, and the second most powerful leader of Nazi Germany.

Göring was born on Jan. 12, 1893, in Rosenheim, Bavaria, and educated at the cadet college in Karlsruhe and the officers' school at Lichterfelde, near Berlin. During World War I he served in the German air force, and in 1918, upon the death of his squadron leader, Baron Manfred von Richthofen, he became squadron leader.

Göring met Adolf Hitler in 1921 and a year later became a leader of the National Socialist (Nazi) party. He was wounded in the unsuccessful Munich beer-hall Putsch of 1923, and morphine given to ease his pain from the wound made him a permanent drug addict.

After an exile in nearby countries for four years, he was elected a member of the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1928 and became president of that body in 1932.

Göring became Reich minister for air forces upon the National Socialist accession to power early in 1933; he also served as premier of Prussia and, for one year, as minister of the interior and head of all German police forces. In 1936 he became economic "dictator" of Germany.

As commander in chief of the German air force, Göring planned much of the strategy, involving close and highly effective coordination between the German ground and air forces, that resulted in the rapid conquests of Poland, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France in 1939 and 1940.

He also devised the policy of terror bombing, whereby entire cities, such as Rotterdam, Holland, and Coventry, England, were nearly leveled by aerial bombardment as a means of subjugating their civilian populations. He used his position to enrich himself and systematically looted the art treasures of the Nazi-occupied countries for his private collection.

Göring surrendered to U.S. forces in 1945 and was tried, with other German war leaders, by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Found guilty on all counts and sentenced to death by hanging, he poisoned himself on Oct. 15, 1946, hours before his scheduled execution.

Rudolf Hess

(1894-1987), German Nazi functionary, one of Adolf Hitler's principal lieutenants in the 1920s and '30s.

Hess, the son of a German merchant, was born in Alexandria, Egypt. After serving in the German army during World War I, he joined the fledgling Nazi party in 1921.

Hess participated in the Nazi attempt to overthrow the Bavarian government in 1923 and was imprisoned with Hitler at Landsberg, becoming the Nazi leader's private secretary. After Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933, he appointed Hess his deputy in charge of the party organization. In 1934 he was elevated to the rank of minister and appointed a member of Hitler's cabinet. Hitler named him third deputy of the Reich in 1939, placing him directly below the Nazi leader Hermann Göring in line of succession.

Two years later, when World War II was reaching its height, Hess made a solo airplane flight to Scotland; on his immediate arrest as a prisoner of war he announced that he had flown to Great Britain to persuade the British government to conclude peace with Germany. He remained a prisoner and at the war crimes trials held at Nuremberg in 1945-46, he was convicted as a major war criminal. Sentenced to life imprisonment at Spandau Prison, West Berlin, he was its solitary inmate from 1966 until his suicide in 1987.

Heinrich Himmler

(1900-45), German National Socialist (Nazi) official, notorious as the head of the Nazi police forces.

He joined the party in 1925, and from 1926 to 1930 he was its director of propaganda. In 1929 he became chief of the Schutzstaffel (known as the SS, or Black Shirts), an elite military force of the party, and in 1934 he won control of the Gestapo (secret police).

As head of all German police forces from 1936 to 1945 he carried out a ruthless program for the extermination of Jews and the suppression of all opposition to Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime. Hitler appointed him minister of the interior in 1943, and in 1944 Himmler became director of home-front operations and chief of the German armed forces operating within the borders of Germany.

In April 1945 he was captured by the British army. Himmler was scheduled to stand trial with the other German leaders as a major war criminal, but he committed suicide shortly after he was arrested.

Emperor Hirohito

(1901-89), emperor of Japan (1926-89), who was the last ruler to uphold (during the first part of his reign) the Shinto idea of imperial divinity.

Hirohito was born in Tokyo on April 29, 1901, and was educated in Japan. In 1921 he visited Europe, the first Japanese prince to leave his native land. On his return he served (1921-26) as regent during the illness of his father, the emperor Yoshihito (1879-1926).

In 1924 the prince regent married the princess Nagako (1903-2000). He succeeded to the throne on Dec. 25, 1926, designating his reign Showa ("enlightened peace" wink . His son and successor, Akihito, was born in 1933.

For the first 19 years of his reign Hirohito allowed a militaristic party to dominate the Japanese government, with resultant expansionism, war with China (1937-45), and military alliance with the Axis powers (1940). The alliance led to Japan's participation in World War II and its attack, Dec. 7, 1941, on the U.S.

Toward the end of the war Hirohito sought peace, and on Aug. 14, 1945 (Japanese time), he broadcast the unconditional surrender of Japan to the Allies.

Hirohito cooperated with the Allied occupation forces in converting Japan into a democratic nation, and on Jan. 1, 1946, he publicly denied his divinity. He approved the 1947 constitution that created a constitutional monarchy in Japan and limited his role largely to a ceremonial one.

Although he was implicated in the Japanese war plans, the Allies agreed not to try Hirohito in the war-crimes trials of 1946-48, concentrating instead on Gen. Hideki Tojo, the wartime prime minister.

In the 1970s the emperor and his wife made goodwill tours of Western Europe and the U.S.

An unassuming man, Hirohito took an early interest in marine biology and was widely recognized for his studies in that field. He died on Jan. 7, 1989, after a prolonged illness.

Adolf Hitler

(1889-1945), German dictator, chancellor (1933-1945), founder and leader (führer) of German fascism (Nazism).

Making anti-Semitism a keystone of his propaganda and policies, he built up the Nazi party into a mass movement. Once in power, he converted Germany into a fully militarized society and launched World War II. For a time he dominated most of Europe and North Africa. He caused the slaughter of millions of Jews and others whom he considered inferior human beings.
Early Years

Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria, on April 20, 1889, the son of a minor customs official and a peasant girl. A poor student, he never completed high school. He applied for admission to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna but was rejected for lack of talent. Staying in Vienna until 1913, he lived first on an orphan's pension, later on small earnings from pictures he drew. He read voraciously, developing anti-Jewish and antidemocratic convictions, an admiration for the outstanding individual, and a contempt for the masses.

In World War I, Hitler, by then in Munich, volunteered for service in the Bavarian army. He proved a dedicated, courageous soldier, but was never promoted beyond private first class because his superiors thought him lacking in leadership qualities. After Germany's defeat in 1918 he returned to Munich, remaining in the army until 1920. His commander made him an education officer, with the mandate to immunize his charges against pacifist and democratic ideas.

In September 1919 he joined the nationalist German Workers' party, and in April 1920 he went to work full time for the party, now renamed the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) party. In 1921 he was elected party chairman (Führer) with dictatorial powers.
Rise to Power

Organizing meeting after meeting, terrorizing political foes with groups of party thugs, Hitler spread his gospel of racial hatred and contempt for democracy. He soon became a key figure in Bavarian politics, aided by high officials and businessmen. In November 1923, a time of political and economic chaos, he led an uprising (Putsch) in Munich against the postwar Weimar Republic, proclaiming himself chancellor of a new authoritarian regime. Without military support, however, the Putsch collapsed.

As leader of the plot, Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment and spent the eight months he actually served dictating his autobiography Mein Kampf. Released as a result of a general amnesty in December 1924, he rebuilt his party without interference from those whose government he had tried to overthrow. When the Great Depression struck in 1929, his explanation of it as a Jewish-Communist plot was accepted by many Germans. Promising a strong Germany, jobs, and national glory, he attracted millions of voters. Nazi representation in the Reichstag (parliament) rose from 12 seats in 1928 to 107 in 1930.

During the following two years the party kept expanding, benefiting from growing unemployment, fear of Communism, Hitler's self-certainty, and the diffidence of his political rivals. Nevertheless, when Hitler was appointed chancellor in January 1933, he was expected to be an easily controlled tool of big business.
Germany's Dictator

Once in power, however, Hitler quickly established himself as a dictator. Thousands of anti-Nazis were hauled off to concentration camps and all signs of dissent suppressed. An Enabling Act passed by a subservient legislature allowed him to Nazify the bureaucracy and the judiciary, replace all labor unions with one Nazi-controlled German Labor Front, and ban all political parties except his own. The economy, the media, and all cultural activities were brought under Nazi authority by making an individual's livelihood dependent on his or her political loyalty.

Hitler relied on his secret police, the Gestapo, and on jails and camps to intimidate his opponents, but most Germans supported him enthusiastically. His armament drive wiped out unemployment, an ambitious recreational program attracted workers and employees, and his foreign policy successes impressed the nation. He thus managed to mold the German people into the pliable tool he needed to establish German rule over Europe and other parts of the world. Discrediting the churches with charges of corruption and immorality, he imposed his own brutal moral code. He derided the concept of human equality and claimed racial superiority for the Germans. As the master race, they were told, they had the right to dominate all nations they subjected. The increasingly ruthless persecution of the Jews was to inure the Germans to this task.

Setting out on his empire-building mission, Hitler launched Germany's open rearmament in 1935 (in defiance of the World War I peace treaty), sent troops into the demilitarized Rhineland in 1936, and annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland in 1938. In March 1939 he brought the remainder of Czechoslovakia under German control. He also came to the aid of Francisco Franco's rebels in Spain's civil war (1936-39). Outmaneuvered and fearful of war, no national leader offered resistance to his moves.Evaluation

Hitler had a charismatic personality of overpowering forcefulness. An amoral man, rootless and incapable of personal friendships, he looked on his fellow humans as mere bricks in the world structure he wished to erect. He knew how to appeal to people's baser instincts and made use of their fears and insecurities. He could do that, however, only because they were willing to be led, even though his program was one of hatred and violence. His impact was wholly destructive, and nothing of what he instituted and built survived.

Benito Mussolini

(1883-1945), premier-dictator of Italy (1922-43), the founder and leader (Il Duce) of Italian Fascism.

Mussolini was born in Predappio on July 29, 1883, the son of a socialist blacksmith. Largely self-educated, he became a schoolteacher and socialist journalist in northern Italy. In 1910 he married Rachele Guidi (1890-1979), who bore him five children.

Mussolini was jailed for his opposition to Italy's war in Libya (1911-12). Soon after that, he was named editor of Avanti!, the Socialist party newspaper in Milan. When World War I began, in 1914, Mussolini first denounced it as "imperialist," but he soon reversed himself and called for Italy's entry on the Allied side.

Expelled from the Socialist party, he started his own newspaper in Milan, Il Popolo d'Italia (The People of Italy), which later became the organ of the Fascist movement.
Rise to Power

In turbulent postwar Milan, Mussolini and other young war veterans founded the Fasci di Combattimento in March 1919. This nationalistic, antiliberal, and antisocialist movement attracted lower middle-class support and took its name from the fasces, an ancient symbol of Roman discipline. Growing rapidly after mid-1920, fascism spread into the countryside, where its black-shirt militia won support from landowners and attacked peasant leagues and socialist groups.

Opportunistically, fascism shed its initial republicanism, thereby winning sympathy from the army and the king.

When Fascists threatened to march on Rome, King Victor Emmanuel III invited Mussolini to form a coalition government (Oct. 28, 1922).

By 1926 the Fascist leader had transformed the country into a single-party, totalitarian regime. In his new "corporative state," employers and workers were organized into party-controlled groups representing different sectors of the economy. The system preserved capitalism and expanded social services, but abolished free trade unions and the right to strike. The Lateran pacts with the Vatican (1929) ended a half-century of friction between church and state and proved to be long-lasting. Another enduring legacy of fascism was a system of industrial holding companies financed by the state.

Adopting an aggressive foreign policy, Mussolini defied the League of Nations and conquered Ethiopia (1935-36). This won him acclaim in almost every sector of the populace. Il Duce's popularity declined, however, after he sent troops to help Gen. Francisco Franco in the Spanish civil war (1936-39), linked Italy to Nazi Germany, enacted anti-Jewish laws, and invaded Albania (1939).
World War II

Because of military unpreparedness, Mussolini did not enter World War II until June 1940, when the Germans had overrun France. Italy fought the British in Africa, invaded Greece, and joined the Germans in carving up Yugoslavia, attacking the Soviet Union, and declaring war on the U.S.After Italy's many military defeats, King Victor Emmanuel dismissed Mussolini on July 25, 1943, and in September obtained an armistice with the Allies, who had invaded southern Italy. At the same time, the Germans rescued the sickly Mussolini and made him organize a brutal puppet Social Republic in northern Italy. In the final days of the war Mussolini attempted an escape to Switzerland with his mistress Clara Petacci (b. 1912). Italian partisans captured and shot them on April 28, 1945, at Giulino di Mezzegra near Lake Como. In view of their country's wartime disasters, few Italians regretted the overthrow of the Fascist regime and the death of its demagogic Duce.

Joachim von Ribbentrop

(1893-1946), German diplomat, born in Wesel, and educated in France and England.

He served in the German army during World War I and later amassed a considerable fortune as a wine merchant.

About 1921 he joined Hitler's National Socialist movement. He was appointed ambassador at large (1935), served as ambassador to Britain (1936-3 cool , and was foreign minister (1938-1945).

Ribbentrop negotiated the system of alliances between Germany, Italy, and Japan known as the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis, as well as the German-Soviet nonaggression pact of 1939. He also helped plan and execute the German program of expansion, which led to the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia and culminated in World War II.

In June 1945, after the defeat and surrender of the German armies, he was arrested by British troops and brought to trial at Nuremberg with the other major National Socialist leaders. He was convicted in 1946 of conspiring and waging aggressive war, of war crimes, and of crimes against humanity, and was hanged.

Erwin Rommel

(1891-1944), German field marshal, renowned for his African desert victories during World War II.

Born in Heidenheim, he joined the German army in 1910. After winning awards for bravery in World War I, he taught in military academies. In the German push to the English Channel in 1940 Rommel headed the victorious 7th Tank Division. He was made a lieutenant general the following year and placed in command of the Afrika Korps in North Africa.

He achieved a brilliant record as a tactician in desert warfare, driving the British from Libya to el-Alamein (al-Alamayn) by June 1942; his victories earned him promotion to field marshal as well as the nickname the Desert Fox. Subsequent reverses forced him back to Tunis, and he returned home in March 1943 before the final surrender of the Afrika Korps.

In 1944 he commanded the German armies charged with the defense of northern France. Accused of complicity in the attempt on Hitler's life in July 1944, he chose to take poison rather than stand trial.

Hideki Tojo

(1884-194 cool , Japanese leader during World War II. The son of an army officer, Tojo was born in Tokyo, and educated at the Imperial Military Academy. An extreme militarist and advocate of total war, he became army chief of staff in 1937, commanding the Japanese Kwantung army against the Chinese in Manchuria.

In 1940 he was made minister of war in the Japanese cabinet, and in 1941, two months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he was appointed prime minister. He controlled the government and directed the military operations of his country in World War II until 1944, when he resigned in disgrace because of reverses suffered by Japanese forces.

At the conclusion of the war in 1945, he was arrested as a war criminal. Tojo was tried and convicted by an international military tribunal, and he was executed on Dec. 23, 1948.