# data[].attributes.body
Tojo succeeded Konoe as prime minister on October 18, 1941, and pledged his government to a Greater East Asia program. He retained control of the Ministry of War and was also minister of commerce and industry from 1943.

# data[].attributes.body
Tojo was the general of the Japanese military, and later became Prime Minister of Japan during WW2. He ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. He committed various war crimes against POWs and citizens and eventually sentenced to death after the Tokyo Trials.

# data[].attributes.body
Hitler capitalized on economic woes, popular discontent, and political infighting to take absolute power in Germany beginning in 1933. Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939 led to the outbreak of World War II, and by 1941 Nazi forces had occupied much of Europe.

# data[].attributes.body
Adolf was the leader of Nazi Germany during WW2. He ordered the mass execution of at least 6 million Jewish men, women, and children. (Holocaust) Hitler fought WW2 on 2 fronts. He died in the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin in 1945 by suicide.

# data[].attributes.body
In 1922 Mussolini led a coalition of fascist leaders to Rome and forced the king to yield the government. Mussolini was appointed prime minister. By 1925 he had dismantled Italy's democratic government and, acting as a dictator, declared himself leader.

# data[].attributes.body
Mussolini was the fascist Dictator of Italy who was friends with Hitler. He signed the Pact of Steel with Hitler agreeing to provide support if War breaks out. He ended up being removed from power in 1943 and was eventually killed by his own citizens

# data[].attributes.body
In 1922, the leaders of the Russian Communist Party decided to expand the party's Central Committee. Due to this expansion, a secretariat became a necessity. Stalin was appointed the head of this new office on the 3rd of April.

# data[].attributes.body
Stalin was the leader of Communist Russia during WW2. Stalin was originally on Adolf Hitler's side but then switched sides when Hitler attacked Russia. Stalin was a mean and violent leader during his dictatorship and killed around 9 million people.

# data[].attributes.body
He served as governor from 1929 to 1933, then ran for president in the 1932 presidential election. Roosevelt defeated Republican Herbert Hoover and began his presidency in the midst of the Great Depression.

# data[].attributes.body
Franklin D. Roosevelt was the president of the US during WWII. He didn't decide to bring the states into the war until after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. FDR enacted the Lend-Lease Act in 1941 and propelled the nation into action. The US became a global military superpower.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Skip to main content

Cookies on GOV.UK

We use some essential cookies to make this website work.

We'd like to set additional cookies to understand how you use GOV.UK, remember your settings and improve government services.

We also use cookies set by other sites to help us deliver content from their services.

You have accepted additional cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time.

You have rejected additional cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time.

Accept additional cookies Reject additional cookies View cookies

Conservative 1940 to 1945, 1951 to 1955

Winston Churchill was an inspirational statesman, writer, orator and leader who led Britain to victory in the Second World War. He served as Conservative Prime Minister twice - from 1940 to 1945 (before being defeated in the 1945 general election by the Labour leader Clement Attlee) and from 1951 to 1955.

Born

30 November 1874, Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire

Died

24 January 1965, London

Dates in office

1940 to 1945, 1951 to 1955

Political party

Conservative

Major acts

Education Act 1944: raised the school leavers age to 14; introduction of the 11+.

Interesting facts

Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 for his many published works. More information including archive footage can be found at the Churchill War Rooms.

Biography

David Cameron's Favourite Past Prime Minister
Winston Churchill was born on 30 November 1874, in Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire and was of rich, aristocratic ancestry. Although achieving poor grades at school, his early fascination with militarism saw him join the Royal Cavalry in 1895. As a soldier and part-time journalist, Churchill travelled widely, including trips to Cuba, Afghanistan, Egypt and South Africa.

Churchill was elected as Conservative MP for Oldham in 1900, before defecting to the Liberal Party in 1904 and spending the next decade climbing the ranks of the Liberal government. He was First Lord of the Admiralty (the civil/political head of the Royal Navy) by the time of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign, which he created. Heavily criticised for this error, he resigned from this position and travelled to the Western Front to fight himself.

The interwar years saw Churchill again 'cross the floor' from the Liberals, back to the Conservative Party. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1924, when he controversially opted for Britain to re-join the Gold Standard. Following the Tory electoral defeat in 1929, Churchill lost his seat and spent much of the next 11 years out of office, mainly writing and making speeches. Although he was alone in his firm opposition to Indian Independence, his warnings against the Appeasement of Nazi Germany were proven correct when the Second World War broke out in 1939.

Following Neville Chamberlain 's resignation in 1940, Churchill was chosen to succeed him as Prime Minister of an all-party coalition government.

Churchill, who also adopted the self-created position of Minister for Defence, was active both in administrative and diplomatic functions in prosecuting the British war effort. Some of his most memorable speeches were given in this period, and are credited with stimulating British morale during periods of great hardship. However, Labour leader Clement Attlee 's unexpected General Election victory in 1945 saw Churchill out of office and once again concentrating on public speaking. In his 1946 speech in the USA, the instinctive pro-American famously declared that "an iron curtain has descended across the Continent", and warned of the continued danger from a powerful Soviet Russia.

By his re-election in 1951, Churchill was, in the words of Roy Jenkins, "gloriously unfit for office". Ageing and increasingly unwell, he often conducted business from his bedside, and while his powerful personality and oratory ability endured, the Prime Minister's leadership was less decisive than during the war. His second term was most notable for the Conservative Party's acceptance of Labour's newly created Welfare State, and Churchill's effect on domestic policy was limited. His later attempts at decreasing the developing Cold War through personal diplomacy failed to produce significant results, and poor health forced him to resign in 1955, making way for his Foreign Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister, Anthony Eden.

Churchill died in 1965, and was honoured with a state funeral.

Thank you for your feedback

Report a problem with this page

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Skip to main content We use some essential cookies to make this website work. We'd like to set additional cookies to understand how you use GOV.UK, remember your settings and improve government services. We also use cookies set by other sites to help us deliver content from their services.

# data[].attributes.body
On May 10, 1940, with the Germans attacking western Europe, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned and King George VI asked Churchill to become Prime Minister and form a government.

# data[].attributes.body
Churchill was the British prime minister during World War II. He was outspoken about Hitler and appeasement before the outbreak of the war. He was defeated in his political position in 1945 but then was re-elected again in 1950.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Assuming the Presidency at the depth of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt helped the American people regain faith in themselves. He brought hope as he promised prompt, vigorous action, and asserted in his Inaugural Address, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Born in 1882 at Hyde Park, New York-now a national historic site-he attended Harvard University and Columbia Law School. On St. Patrick's Day, 1905, he married Eleanor Roosevelt.

Following the example of his fifth cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt, whom he greatly admired, Franklin D. Roosevelt entered public service through politics, but as a Democrat. He won election to the New York Senate in 1910. President Wilson appointed him Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and he was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 1920.

In the summer of 1921, when he was 39, disaster hit-he was stricken with poliomyelitis. Demonstrating indomitable courage, he fought to regain the use of his legs, particularly through swimming. At the 1924 Democratic Convention he dramatically appeared on crutches to nominate Alfred E. Smith as "the Happy Warrior." In 1928 Roosevelt became Governor of New York.

He was elected President in November 1932, to the first of four terms. By March there were 13,000,000 unemployed, and almost every bank was closed. In his first "hundred days," he proposed, and Congress enacted, a sweeping program to bring recovery to business and agriculture, relief to the unemployed and to those in danger of losing farms and homes, and reform, especially through the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

By 1935 the Nation had achieved some measure of recovery, but businessmen and bankers were turning more and more against Roosevelt's New Deal program. They feared his experiments, were appalled because he had taken the Nation off the gold standard and allowed deficits in the budget, and disliked the concessions to labor. Roosevelt responded with a new program of reform: Social Security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, new controls over banks and public utilities, and an enormous work relief program for the unemployed.

In 1936 he was re-elected by a top-heavy margin. Feeling he was armed with a popular mandate, he sought legislation to enlarge the Supreme Court, which had been invalidating key New Deal measures. Roosevelt lost the Supreme Court battle, but a revolution in constitutional law took place. Thereafter the Government could legally regulate the economy.

Roosevelt had pledged the United States to the "good neighbor" policy, transforming the Monroe Doctrine from a unilateral American manifesto into arrangements for mutual action against aggressors. He also sought through neutrality legislation to keep the United States out of the war in Europe, yet at the same time to strengthen nations threatened or attacked. When France fell and England came under siege in 1940, he began to send Great Britain all possible aid short of actual military involvement.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt directed organization of the Nation's manpower and resources for global war.

Feeling that the future peace of the world would depend upon relations between the United States and Russia, he devoted much thought to the planning of a United Nations, in which, he hoped, international difficulties could be settled.

As the war drew to a close, Roosevelt's health deteriorated, and on April 12, 1945, while at Warm Springs, Georgia, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

For more information about President Roosevelt, please visit Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum

Learn more about Franklin D. Roosevelt's spouse, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Assuming the Presidency at the depth of the Great Depression as our 32nd President (1933-1945), Franklin D. Roosevelt helped the American people regain faith in themselves.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Childhood

Born on July 29, 1883, in Verano di Costa, Italy, Mussolini was the son of blacksmith and ardent socialist Alessandro Mussolini and a devout Catholic mother, Rosa Maltoni. By most accounts, Mussolini's family lived in simple, small quarters.

Young Mussolini was expelled from his first boarding school at age 10 for stabbing a fellow student. At 14, he stabbed another student but was only suspended.

Socialist Activism

Much of Mussolini's early adulthood was spent traveling around Switzerland, getting involved with that country's Socialist Party and clashing with police. In 1909, he moved to Austria-Hungary to become editor of a socialist newspaper, but was deported back to Italy after being accused of violating laws meant to regulate press freedom.

In 1910, Mussolini became the editor for another Italian socialist newspaper, but soon spent six months in jail for inciting violence. During his incarceration, he began to write his autobiography-though still in his twenties-detailing his troubled school years and his many romantic conquests.

Mussolini split from the Socialist Party in 1914. Starting his own newspaper, he encouraged violence from his supporters as unrest spread across the country.

Italian Facism

In 1915, Mussolini joined the Italian army in World War I. He fought on the front lines and obtained the rank of corporal before being discharged for a war wound. Mussolini returned to newspapers and by 1918 called for a dictator to seize control of Italy. Pressure from Mussolini and his followers forced the government to order the internment of foreigners they considered enemies.

After the Treaty of Versailles in 1919-and his dissatisfaction with it-Mussolini gathered the various fascist groups into a national organization called Fasci Italiani di Combattimento. The Italian Fascists courted war veterans and encouraged violence against socialists. Mussolini stockpiled weapons and explosives in his newspaper offices.

Children and Marriages

Mussolini was married twice: to Ida Dalser in 1914, and to his longtime mistress Rachele Guidi one year later. Additionally, Mussolini had a number of other mistresses and liaisons.

His first marriage produced a son, Benito Albino Mussolini. Following Mussolini's second marriage, records of his first marriage and son were destroyed or suppressed, and both wife and son were kept under constant surveillance. Italian authorities sent Ida to an island near Venice, where she died in 1937. Her son was forced into an asylum near Milan, where he died in 1942 at age 26.

Mussolini's marriage to Rachele lasted until his death. The couple had five children: three sons, Vittorio, Bruno and Romano, and two daughters, Edda and Anna Maria. Rachele died in 1979 at age 89.

Rise to Power

By the end of 1919, Mussolini stood in a general election as the Fascist candidate but lost in a Socialist sweep. Two days later, Mussolini was arrested for allegedly collecting arms to overthrow the government. He was released without charges the next day.

In 1921, the Italian King Victor Emmanuel III dissolved Parliament amidst growing violence and chaos. Elections brought a huge win for the Fascists, with Mussolini taking a seat as a deputy in Parliament. The party changed its name to Partito Nazionale Fascista.

Fascists Seize Control of Italy

In 1922, Fascists were instructed to wear uniforms, including black shirts, in squads that were modeled after Roman army groups. All party members were considered squad members.

Soon after, several Italian cities were seized by Fascist squads, who also burned down communist and socialist offices.

In October 1922, Mussolini threatened to march on Rome to take control of the government through violent force if it was not handed over. King Victor Emmanuel and the government were slow to act, eventually dispatching troops, though Fascists had already seized control of some local governments.

Refusing to pass martial law, Victor Emmanuel watched as thousands of armed Fascists entered Rome. He dissolved the government and asked Mussolini to form a new one.

Prime Minister Mussolini

Mussolini became Prime Minister, as well as Minister of the Interior and Minister for Foreign Affairs. Mussolini did not become a dictator overnight, but a speech he gave to the Italian parliament on January 3, 1925, asserting his right to supreme power is generally seen as the effective date that Mussolini declared himself dictator of Italy.

Mussolini's first act as prime minister was to demand special emergency powers allowing him to rig elections in the Fascists' favor. Soon after, the Italian parliament made suspicion of being anti-Fascist punishable by imprisonment without trial.

The next year police rounded-up Socialists, and the government restricted their publishing activities. A Socialist deputy plotted to assassinate Mussolini, but the betrayal of a friend led to his arrest just before the attempt. Several other assassination attempts followed.

Italy Under Fascism

In 1926, Fascists created a youth group called the Opera Nazionale Balilla, pressuring children to join. The Catholic Boy Scouts were dissolved and the formation of other youth groups became illegal.

The same year, all communist members of Parliament were arrested, and all Socialist Party members expelled. Anyone who could not be prosecuted for a crime was detained for up to five years and placed in island internment camps.

Cinemas were required to screen government propaganda in the form of newsreels. Fascists owned 66 percent of the newspapers and controlled reporting, issuing daily editorial guidelines and threatening editors with arrest.

The Order of Journalists was created and membership was mandatory. Newspapers were allowed to criticize the government as long as they generally expressed support.
READ MORE: How Mussolini Seized Power in Italy
Mussolini and Hitler

At first, Mussolini disapproved of Germany's Adolf Hitler, but over time their partnership grew and Mussolini embraced Hitler's anti-Semitic measures.

Following Italy's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia, Germany was the second country to recognize Italy's legitimacy there. Both Hitler and Mussolini sided with Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War in 1936, with Mussolini providing 50,000 troops.

In 1937, Italy left the League of Nations in solidarity with Germany, and in March of 1938, Hitler invaded Austria with Mussolini's support.

Mussolini wrote an article in 1938 that aligned Italians with the German concept of the Aryan race. When anti-Jewish laws began to appear in Italy, Germany felt they were weak, but Mussolini was prepared to increase their severity as needed. Soon after, Mussolini called for the expulsion of foreign Jews from Italy.
WATCH VIDEO: American Women in World War II
Axis Powers

Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939 immediately caused Britain and France to declare war against Germany, but Mussolini, for the moment, remained neutral.

Germany's invasion of Denmark and Norway convinced Mussolini that Hitler would win the war. Soon Holland and Belgium also fell to Hitler. On May 22, 1939, Italy and Germany signed the " Pact of Steel" officially creating the Axis powers. ( Japan would join in September of 1940 with the signing of the Tripartite Pact.)

As the Germans plowed through France in June 1940, Mussolini announced Italy's entrance into the war. Italy declared war on France and Great Britain on June 10, 1940.

The Plot Against Mussolini

By 1943, after years of fighting in World War II, Italy was viewed by its own citizens as losing the war.

On July 25, 1943, Mussolini was voted out of power by his own Grand Council, arrested after a visit with the king and sent to the island of La Maddalena.

When Italy accepted the terms of secret peace talks with the Allies, Hitler ordered German forces into Italy, which resulted in two Italian nations, one occupied by Germans.

Mussolini, fearful of being handed over, was instead rescued by Hitler's forces. Transported to German-occupied northern Italy, he was installed as Hitler's puppet leader, creating the Italian Social Republic and leading to the extermination of thousands of Italian Jews.

Allied forces began barreling through Italy in June 1944, and Mussolini attempted to flee to Spain in April 1945 with his lover, Claretta Petacci, but was discovered and arrested by partisans searching troop transport trucks.

How Did Mussolini Die?

There are conflicting stories about how Mussolini died, but autopsy reports state the dictator was executed by firing squad on April 28, 1945, shot by soldiers firing several bullets-with four of them near the heart-causing immediate death.

The bodies of both Mussolini and Petacci were hung upside down at the Piazzale Loreto in Milan and displayed for crowds to kick and spit on. One day later, Hitler committed suicide and the following week, Germany surrendered.

Mussolini's Body

Mussolini's body was buried in an unmarked grave, which was unearthed in 1946 by Fascist supporters, who took the body to a convent in Lombardy. The government recovered it and interred it in a monastery near Milan.

Mussolini's wife petitioned to have the body moved from a grave in Milan to a family mausoleum in Predappio in 1957.

In 1966, she was given an envelope containing a piece of her husband's brain. The American diplomat who handed it to her claimed that the Americans had taken the brain in order to study what makes a dictator. She had the relic placed in his tomb, which receives 100,000 visitors a year.

Mussolini Quotes

"It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep."

"Democracy is a kingless regime infested by many kings who are sometimes more exclusive, tyrannical and destructive than one, even if he be a tyrant."

"Many think, and I myself am one of them, that capitalism is scarcely at the beginning of its story."

Sources

Mussolini: The Last 600 Days of Il Duce. Ray Moseley.
Mussolini. Jasper Ridley.
Mussolini. Rupert Colley.
Benito Mussolini (1883-1945). BBC.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Benito Mussolini: Children, Death & World War II - HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Benito Mussolini, an Italian political leader who allied himself with Adolf Hitler during World War II, became the fascist dictator of Italy from 1925-1945.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Early Life

Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn, a small Austrian town near the Austro-German frontier. After his father, Alois, retired as a state customs official, young Adolf spent most of his childhood in Linz, the capital of Upper Austria.

Not wanting to follow in his father's footsteps as a civil servant, he began struggling in secondary school and eventually dropped out. Alois died in 1903, and Adolf pursued his dream of being an artist, though he was rejected from Vienna's Academy of Fine Arts.

After his mother, Klara, died in 1908, Hitler moved to Vienna, where he pieced together a living painting scenery and monuments and selling the images. Lonely, isolated and a voracious reader, Hitler became interested in politics during his years in Vienna, and developed many of the ideas that would shape Nazi ideology.

Military Career of Adolf Hitler

In 1913, Hitler moved to Munich, in the German state of Bavaria. When World War I broke out the following summer, he successfully petitioned the Bavarian king to be allowed to volunteer in a reserve infantry regiment.

Deployed in October 1914 to Belgium, Hitler served throughout the Great War and won two decorations for bravery, including the rare Iron Cross First Class, which he wore to the end of his life.

Hitler was wounded twice during the conflict: He was hit in the leg during the Battle of the Somme in 1916, and temporarily blinded by a British gas attack near Ypres in 1918. A month later, he was recuperating in a hospital at Pasewalk, northeast of Berlin, when news arrived of the armistice and Germany's defeat in World War I.

Like many Germans, Hitler came to believe the country's devastating defeat could be attributed not to the Allies, but to insufficiently patriotic "traitors" at home-a myth that would undermine the post-war Weimar Republic and set the stage for Hitler's rise.

Nazi Party

After Hitler returned to Munich in late 1918, he joined the small German Workers' Party, which aimed to unite the interests of the working class with a strong German nationalism. His skilled oratory and charismatic energy helped propel him in the party's ranks, and in 1920 he left the army and took charge of its propaganda efforts.

In one of Hitler's strokes of propaganda genius, the newly renamed National Socialist German Workers Party, or Nazi Party, adopted a version of the swastika-an ancient sacred symbol of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism -as its emblem. Printed in a white circle on a red background, Hitler's swastika would take on terrifying symbolic power in the years to come.

By the end of 1921, Hitler led the growing Nazi Party, capitalizing on widespread discontent with the Weimar Republic and the punishing terms of the Versailles Treaty. Many dissatisfied former army officers in Munich would join the Nazis, notably Ernst Röhm, who recruited the "strong arm" squads-known as the Sturmabteilung (SA)-which Hitler used to protect party meetings and attack opponents.

Beer Hall Putsch

On the evening of November 8, 1923, members of the SA and others forced their way into a large beer hall where another right-wing leader was addressing the crowd. Wielding a revolver, Hitler proclaimed the beginning of a national revolution and led marchers to the center of Munich, where they got into a gun battle with police.

Hitler fled quickly, but he and other rebel leaders were later arrested. Even though it failed spectacularly, the Beer Hall Putsch established Hitler as a national figure, and (in the eyes of many) a hero of right-wing nationalism.

'Mein Kampf'

Tried for treason, Hitler was sentenced to five years in prison, but would serve only nine months in the relative comfort of Landsberg Castle. During this period, he began to dictate the book that would become " Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle"), the first volume of which was published in 1925.

In it, Hitler expanded on the nationalistic, anti-Semitic views he had begun to develop in Vienna in his early twenties, and laid out plans for the Germany-and the world-he sought to create when he came to power.

Hitler would finish the second volume of "Mein Kampf" after his release, while relaxing in the mountain village of Berchtesgaden. It sold modestly at first, but with Hitler's rise it became Germany's best-selling book after the Bible. By 1940, it had sold some 6 million copies there.

Hitler's second book, "The Zweites Buch," was written in 1928 and contained his thoughts on foreign policy. It was not published in his lifetime due to the poor initial sales of "Mein Kampf." The first English translations of "The Zweites Buch" did not appear until 1962 and was published under the title "Hitler's Secret Book."

Obsessed with race and the idea of ethnic "purity," Hitler saw a natural order that placed the so-called "Aryan race" at the top.

For him, the unity of the Volk (the German people) would find its truest incarnation not in democratic or parliamentary government, but in one supreme leader, or Führer.

"Mein Kampf" also addressed the need for Lebensraum (or living space): In order to fulfill its destiny, Germany should take over lands to the east that were now occupied by "inferior" Slavic peoples-including Austria, the Sudetenland (Czechoslovakia), Poland and Russia.

The Schutzstaffel (SS)

By the time Hitler left prison, economic recovery had restored some popular support for the Weimar Republic, and support for right-wing causes like Nazism appeared to be waning.

Over the next few years, Hitler laid low and worked on reorganizing and reshaping the Nazi Party. He established the Hitler Youth to organize youngsters, and created the Schutzstaffel (SS) as a more reliable alternative to the SA.

Members of the SS wore black uniforms and swore a personal oath of loyalty to Hitler. (After 1929, under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler, the SS would develop from a group of some 200 men into a force that would dominate Germany and terrorize the rest of occupied Europe during World War II.)

Eva Braun

Hitler spent much of his time at Berchtesgaden during these years, and his half-sister, Angela Raubal, and her two daughters often joined him. After Hitler became infatuated with his beautiful blonde niece, Geli Raubal, his possessive jealousy apparently led her to commit suicide in 1931.

Devastated by the loss, Hitler would consider Geli the only true love affair of his life. He soon began a long relationship with Eva Braun, a shop assistant from Munich, but refused to marry her.

The worldwide Great Depression that began in 1929 again threatened the stability of the Weimar Republic. Determined to achieve political power in order to affect his revolution, Hitler built up Nazi support among German conservatives, including army, business and industrial leaders.

The Third Reich

In 1932, Hitler ran against the war hero Paul von Hindenburg for president, and received 36.8 percent of the vote. With the government in chaos, three successive chancellors failed to maintain control, and in late January 1933 Hindenburg named the 43-year-old Hitler as chancellor, capping the stunning rise of an unlikely leader.

January 30, 1933 marked the birth of the Third Reich, or as the Nazis called it, the "Thousand-Year Reich" (after Hitler's boast that it would endure for a millennium).

Reichstag Fire

Though the Nazis never attained more than 37 percent of the vote at the height of their popularity in 1932, Hitler was able to grab absolute power in Germany largely due to divisions and inaction among the majority who opposed Nazism.

After a devastating fire at Germany's parliament building, the Reichstag, in February 1933-possibly the work of a Dutch communist, though later evidence suggested Nazis set the Reichstag fire themselves-Hitler had an excuse to step up the political oppression and violence against his opponents.

On March 23, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, giving full powers to Hitler and celebrating the union of National Socialism with the old German establishment (i.e., Hindenburg).

That July, the government passed a law stating that the Nazi Party "constitutes the only political party in Germany," and within months all non-Nazi parties, trade unions and other organizations had ceased to exist.

His autocratic power now secure within Germany, Hitler turned his eyes toward the rest of Europe.

In 1933, Germany was diplomatically isolated, with a weak military and hostile neighbors (France and Poland). In a famous speech in May 1933, Hitler struck a surprisingly conciliatory tone, claiming Germany supported disarmament and peace.

But behind this appeasement strategy, the domination and expansion of the Volk remained Hitler's overriding aim.

By early the following year, he had withdrawn Germany from the League of Nations and begun to militarize the nation in anticipation of his plans for territorial conquest.

Night of the Long Knives

On June 29, 1934, the infamous Night of the Long Knives, Hitler had Röhm, former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and hundreds of other problematic members of his own party murdered, in particular troublesome members of the SA.

When the 86-year-old Hindenburg died on August 2, military leaders agreed to combine the presidency and chancellorship into one position, meaning Hitler would command all the armed forces of the Reich.

Persecution of Jews

On September 15, 1935, passage of the Nuremberg Laws deprived Jews of German citizenship, and barred them from marrying or having relations with persons of "German or related blood."

Though the Nazis attempted to downplay its persecution of Jews in order to placate the international community during the 1936 Berlin Olympics (in which German-Jewish athletes were not allowed to compete), additional decrees over the next few years disenfranchised Jews and took away their political and civil rights.

In addition to its pervasive anti-Semitism, Hitler's government also sought to establish the cultural dominance of Nazism by burning books, forcing newspapers out of business, using radio and movies for propaganda purposes and forcing teachers throughout Germany's educational system to join the party.

Much of the Nazi persecution of Jews and other targets occurred at the hands of the Geheime Staatspolizei (GESTAPO), or Secret State Police, an arm of the SS that expanded during this period.

Outbreak of World War II

In March 1936, against the advice of his generals, Hitler ordered German troops to reoccupy the demilitarized left bank of the Rhine.

Over the next two years, Germany concluded alliances with Italy and Japan, annexed Austria and moved against Czechoslovakia-all essentially without resistance from Great Britain, France or the rest of the international community.

Once he confirmed the alliance with Italy in the so-called "Pact of Steel" in May 1939, Hitler then signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. On September 1, 1939, Nazi troops invaded Poland, finally prompting Britain and France to declare war on Germany.

Blitzkrieg

After ordering the occupation of Norway and Denmark in April 1940, Hitler adopted a plan proposed by one of his generals to attack France through the Ardennes Forest. The blitzkrieg ("lightning war") attack began on May 10; Holland quickly surrendered, followed by Belgium.

German troops made it all the way to the English Channel, forcing British and French forces to evacuate en masse from Dunkirk in late May. On June 22, France was forced to sign an armistice with Germany.

Hitler had hoped to force Britain to seek peace as well, but when that failed he went ahead with his attacks on that country, followed by an invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor that December, the United States declared war on Japan, and Germany's alliance with Japan demanded that Hitler declare war on the United States as well.

At that point in the conflict, Hitler shifted his central strategy to focus on breaking the alliance of his main opponents (Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union) by forcing one of them to make peace with him.

Concentration Camps

Beginning in 1933, the SS had operated a network of concentration camps, including a notorious camp at Dachau, near Munich, to hold Jews and other targets of the Nazi regime.

After war broke out, the Nazis shifted from expelling Jews from German-controlled territories to exterminating them. Einsatzgruppen, or mobile death squads, executed entire Jewish communities during the Soviet invasion, while the existing concentration-camp network expanded to include death camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau in occupied Poland.

In addition to forced labor and mass execution, certain Jews at Auschwitz were targeted as the subjects of horrific medical experiments carried out by eugenicist Josef Mengele, known as the "Angel of Death." Mengele's experiments focused on twins and exposed 3,000 child prisoners to disease, disfigurement and torture under the guise of medical research.

Though the Nazis also imprisoned and killed Catholics, homosexuals, political dissidents, Roma (gypsies) and the disabled, above all they targeted Jews-some 6 million of whom were killed in German-occupied Europe by war's end.

End of World War II

With defeats at El-Alamein and Stalingrad, as well as the landing of U.S. troops in North Africa by the end of 1942, the tide of the war turned against Germany.

As the conflict continued, Hitler became increasingly unwell, isolated and dependent on medications administered by his personal physician.

Several attempts were made on his life, including one that came close to succeeding in July 1944, when Col. Claus von Stauffenberg planted a bomb that exploded during a conference at Hitler's headquarters in East Prussia.

Within a few months of the successful Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944, the Allies had begun liberating cities across Europe. That December, Hitler attempted to direct another offensive through the Ardennes, trying to split British and American forces.

But after January 1945, he holed up in a bunker beneath the Chancellery in Berlin. With Soviet forces closing in, Hitler made plans for a last-ditch resistance before finally abandoning that plan.

How Did Adolf Hitler Die?

At midnight on the night of April 28-29, Hitler married Eva Braun in the Berlin bunker. After dictating his political testament, Hitler shot himself in his suite on April 30; Braun took poison. Their bodies were burned according to Hitler's instructions.

With Soviet troops occupying Berlin, Germany surrendered unconditionally on all fronts on May 7, 1945, bringing the war in Europe to a close.

In the end, Hitler's planned "Thousand-Year Reich" lasted just over 12 years, but wreaked unfathomable destruction and devastation during that time, forever transforming the history of Germany, Europe and the world.

Sources

William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
iWonder - Adolf Hitler: Man and Monster, BBC.
The Holocaust: A Learning Site for Students, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Adolf Hiter: Rise to Power, Impact & Death

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Adolf Hitler was leader of the Nazi Party who rose to become dictator of Germany. Hitler used his power to orchestrate the deaths of 6 million Jews and millions of others during World War II.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
How did Tōjō Hideki change the world?

Where was Tōjō Hideki educated?

Where is Tōjō Hideki buried?

This article was most recently revised and updated by

Tōjō Hideki, (born December 30, 1884, Tokyo, Japan-died December 23, 1948, Tokyo), soldier and statesman who was prime minister of Japan (1941-44) during most of the Pacific theatre portion of World War II and who was subsequently tried and executed for war crimes.

Early life and rise to power

A graduate of the Imperial Military Academy and the Military Staff College, Tōjō served briefly as military attaché in Japan's embassy in Berlin after World War I. He was an esteemed administrator and skillful field commander and became noted as a stern disciplinarian. In 1928 he was made commander of the 1st Infantry Regiment, members of which participated in a mutiny of the Tokyo garrison in late February 1936 that he helped suppress. In 1937 he was named chief of staff of the Kwantung Army in Manchuria.

He returned to Tokyo in 1938 as vice-minister of war and was one of the leading advocates of Japan's Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy (1940). In July 1940 he was appointed minister of war in the cabinet of Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro. Tōjō succeeded Konoe as prime minister on October 18, 1941, and pledged his government to a Greater East Asia program, a "New Order in Asia." He retained control of the Ministry of War and was also minister of commerce and industry from 1943.

World War II and conviction for war crimes

A hardworking and efficient bureaucrat, Tōjō was also one of the most aggressive militarists in the Japanese leadership. He led his country's war efforts after the attack on the U.S. military base at Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941, and under his direction smashing victories were initially scored throughout Southeast Asia and the western Pacific region. After a series of Japanese military reverses in the Pacific, Tōjō assumed virtual dictatorial powers, taking over the post of the chief of the General Staff. The successful Allied invasion of the Mariana Islands so weakened his government, however, that he was removed as chief of staff on July 16, 1944, and on July 18 he and his entire cabinet announced their resignation. Four days later he was succeeded as prime minister by Koiso Kuniaki. Tōjō spent the remainder of the war in the military reserve, effectively banned from power.

On September 11, 1945, after Japan's formal surrender, Tōjō shot himself in a suicide attempt, but he was nursed back to health and on April 29, 1946, with other Japanese wartime leaders, was indicted for war crimes before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo. At the trial he was found guilty and then hanged. Tōjō's legacy continued, as he was one of those convicted of war crimes who also had been included among Japan's military dead commemorated in the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. Periodic visits to the shrine by various Japanese prime ministers and other government officials have sparked strong protests from China, South Korea, and other countries that were under Japanese occupation during the war.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Michael Ray.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Tojo Hideki | Biography, Early Years, World War II, Facts, & Death

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Tojo Hideki, soldier and statesman who was prime minister of Japan (1941-44) during most of the Pacific theater portion of World War II and who was subsequently tried and executed for war crimes. Learn more about Tojo's early life, military career, and political leadership in this article.