Educational Thread about Educational Stuff.

[lordofthesilver]

World War 2 Leaders

A complete list of the national leaders of the countries which participated in the war

The aggressors

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler's Historic Background

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Spoiler :

To understand Adolf Hitler and his rise to power it's important to know the historic background. World War 1 was primarily the result of the German militarism. In many ways it was the most militarized nation and until the end of that war it was dominated by its military. When it was defeated in 1918, the German military leadership, which stopped the war before the military collapsed, convinced the German people that they were betrayed, "Stabbed in the back by civilians". It was an irrational excuse, given the military's domination, but it became a popular myth. The defeat in World War 1 was therefore a traumatic shock to most Germans, especially to the German soldiers, and almost no one in Western Europe understood it then. This resulted in a very weak post-war democratic regime in Germany. In addition to that, Germany was divided between a "western" and "eastern" political and social orientations. Today, when Germany is a modern liberal "western" country it's hard to figure it out, but before World War 2, Germany was mostly dominated by the "eastern" orientation that rejected western liberalism and democracy, and had a militarist aggressive orientation facing East, and the "western" orientation which represented peaceful liberalism was a minority. However, this minority orientation governed Germany's weak post-WWI democracy. In Germany and in its sister ethnic-German Austria there was strong anti-semitism that since the 19th century developed to a strong political force that blamed jews for all problems and trouble. This internal hate was intensified after the defeat of World War 1. This was the background for Adolf Hitler's rise to total power as the dictator of Germany, for his aggressive quest for world domination, and the horrible crimes against humanity committed in his command.

Adolf Hitler's early years

Spoiler :

Adolf Hitler was born in 1889 in a small Austrian village close to the German border, the son of a border customs clerk and a housemaid. As a teenager, he began to develop an artistic talent. At age 16 he quit high-school. At age 17 he applied for the Vienna academy of fine arts, but was rejected. When he was 14 his father died, and when he was 18 his loving mother had cancer. She was treated by a Jewish Doctor, but despite costly and painful treatment she died. He was then 18, and alone in the world. He returned to Vienna, and quickly became penniless. He wandered in Vienna, slept in bars and in shelters for the homeless. His attempts to make a living as a painter were futile. He had two Jewish friends there, but Vienna was then an active center of strong anti-semitism, and Hitler also read "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion", a FAKE document that was written by the pre-WWI Russian Royal secret police in a cynical attempt to divert public blame of Russia's trouble from the monarchy to the jews. The "protocols" describe an imaginary conspiracy of rich jews to dominate the world by dominating countries like puppets and turning them against each other. Hitler, already a typical anti-semitic, believed every word. In his poor six years in Vienna, Adolf Hitler developed his extreme hate of jews, was exposed to the idea of anti-Jewish legislation, discovered his remarkable talent of speech, that used grand romantic metaphors from German culture and from his imaginative artistic soul, and developed his view of how a totalitarian state should be managed, following the example of Vienna's very successful Mayor, who was also an anti-semitic. At age 24, still penniless, Adolf Hitler left Vienna and crossed the border to Germany in order to avoid military service in the Austrian army. He was arrested and brought back to Austria, but was then found "Unfit, too weak, unable to bear arms". Given his later military service and bravery in combat, it's obvious that he successfully played a false figure in order to escape a peacetime military service he wanted to avoid.

A soldier in World War 1

Spoiler :

When the fragile European balance of power exploded a year later into World War 1, Hitler's German patriotism was ignited, and he decided to join the military. Because of his previous incident with the Austrian military, he returned to Germany, the ally sister country, and volunteered to the German army. After a short training, his unit was sent to the bloody static battlefield in the trenches of the western front, and fought mainly against British forces. He fought bravely, narrowly escaped death several times, and was decorated twice with the Iron Cross medal, but not promoted. He was wounded twice in combat. In his 2nd injury he was temporarily blinded. During his recovery from his 2nd injury, still blind, in a military hospital, he was surprised and shocked with the news that the war ended with a German defeat. It's important to note that during his years in the military, Hitler received political indoctrination that completed his political education, and made him a strong supporter of the "eastern" militarist orientation. His cruel war experience, he later said, also developed in him an uncompromising iron will. Post-war Germany was in chaos. Communism rose, and Communist movements rioted in the cities, some of them led by jews. Eventually Germany turned from a militarist monarchy to a democracy, with an executive prime minister and a president that kept powerful authorities, the replacement of the king. The socialists gained control of the government. The situation in the streets got worse. The new government finally signed the peace treaty that included loss of territory, a severe economical burden of compensations, and severe limitations on the German military's size and equipment, which were supposed to reduce its threat. It was perceived by most Germans as a great national humiliation. Hitler, finally recovered from his injury, and still officially a soldier, joined a para-military militia of war veterans who clashed with the communists in the streets of German cities. He was then given the task of closely monitoring a tiny right-wing political group called "German Worker's Party".

Hitler enters politics

Spoiler :

Hitler quickly realized that their ideas match his, and that they can be his vehicle for political power, that he decided that he wants as a result of the affair of the war's defeat and the humiliating peace treaty. In April of 1920, at age 31, still with no occupation, he resigned from the military to enter career politics as the new leader of this tiny political group that he initially spied on. It had a militarist "eastern" oriented, anti-semitic, nationalist foreign policy, with a domestic policy of state-controlled "Socialism". It was basically the policy of the previous totalitarian militarist regime, with a big dose of added anti-semitism, and like the communists, it addressed the wide public of workers and ex-soldiers. In 1923 the German economy collapsed into wild hyper-inflation. The peace treaty compensation was blamed for it, but the real reason was that Germany's long time costly militarism that was previously paid for by the fruits of victories, had no victory now to pay its huge national debt, and the government ignored good economical advice that came from top foreign experts. The inflation was such that a visiting US Congressman exchanged $7 for 4,000,000,000 DM, the German currency. Most Germans lost everything they had. They blamed the peace treaty compensations and "Jewish traders". The political crisis that followed resulted in an emergency wide coalition, but also in new violent Communist riots. Eager for power, Hitler thought it's the right time for a revolution of his own. His supporters captured the members of the local government of the state of Bavaria, and he appointed himself the new political master of Bavaria. He marched 3000 of his supporters in the city, but then the police fired at them, and the "revolution" failed. Hitler received a sentence of 5 years in prison, but thanks to the dominance of the "eastern" politicians, which included himself, his imprisonment was like a VIP hotel stay. Instead of a prison cell and prisoner's uniform, he was busy receiving guest politicians and fans six hours a day, wearing traditional Bavarian clothes, and in his 35th birthday, the flowers candies and presents he received filled several rooms. Instead of 5 years, his imprisonment lasted just 9 months. During those months three things happened: 1. Finally, following top international experts' advice, the government successfully stabilized the economy and started a period of several years of steady economical growth.

2. The "western" German orientation lost its remaining popular support, and the German people began to steadily drift back to totalitarianism and militarism. The author D.H. Lawrence, who visited Germany in 1921 and again in 1924 noticed this dramatic drift in public orientation. He wrote "The Germans are disconnecting from the West and drift to the deserts of the East. Germany no longer seeks to join Western Europe and peacefulness. It's over. Germany is turning back to the destructive magic of the East that produced Atila. There is a disturbing sense of danger. There is no more hope for peace and prosperity. Instead there is a return to Tartar savagery and further from Christian European civilization. It happens, and it's deeper than any actual event." - an amazingly sensitive and breathtaking early observation, a precise warning 15 years! before the war began.

Nazi dictator of Germany (1933-45), planned and started World War 2, committed suicide at the end of the war

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General Hideki Tojo

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Spoiler :

Prime minister of Japan (October 1941 - July 1944). With a long militarist tradition, Japan became extremely militarist and aggressive in the 1930s and was practically governed by military leaders. Tojo, an aggressive army General, became minister of war in July 1941 and prime minister in October 1941. After a short attempt to improve relations with the US failed, he ordered to go to war and attack Pearl Harbor in December 1941. He gradually took more ministerial roles, and in Feb. 1944 also made himself the commander in chief, like Adolf Hitler did. When he realized that Japan was going to lose the war he resigned. The military continued to control Japan until the end of World War 2, which came when the Emperor Hirohito which was until then passive, ordered to surrender in order to prevent further inevitable destruction of Japan. After the war Tojo was executed for his responsibility to Japan's war crimes.

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Benito Mussolini

Spoiler :

Benito Mussolini, was the prime minister of Italy (1922-1943). A former journalist, he went to politics and formed the Fascist party, whose ideology, Fascism, called for a one-party state, total obedience, patriotic nationalism, and aggressive militarism. The ideology and its implementation in Mussolini's Italy influenced Adolf Hitler's own ideology, Nazism, which was a combination of Fascism with extreme racism. Initially Mussolini led a right-wing coalition, but later Italy became a one party state. His treatment of unemployment made Mussolini popular, but the military aggression of Fascism led to its failure. Mussolini was eager to demonstrate the "strength" of his regime by invading weaker neighbors. In 1935 he invaded and occupied the peaceful Ethiopia from Italy's nearby colony in East Africa. In 1936, the two Fascist dictators, Hitler and Mussolini, signed an alliance. In 1939 he invaded and occupied his small neighbor Albania, and Mussolini then enhanced his alliance with Hitler to a full military alliance. Mussolini knew that his military was not very effective, but when the Germans defeated the French and British forces in mid 1940 he thought it was safe enough for him to attack Britain and the collapsing France too and declared war, and in October 1940 he also invaded Greece, and was repelled. Mussolini had a million soldiers in Libya, and he sent them to attack the small British force in Egypt. The Italian Navy and Air Force attacked British ports and shipping in the Mediterranean, from Gibraltar in the West to Haifa (Israel) in the East. Despite its numerical strength and the fact that British forces in the Mediterranean were greatly outnumbered and very stretched, the Italian military could not defeat them anywhere, and was severely beaten by the British, and simply had to call for the help of the much more capable Germans. Even with German help, the British forces only lost their positions in Greece and kept fighting fiercely from their island bases in Malta, Gibraltar, and in North Africa. Mussolini's Italy became a German puppet, and even sent troops to participate in Germany's invasion of Russia. Eventually, British and American forces eliminated the Italian and German forces in North Africa and followed in July 1943 with an invasion of Sicily in South Italy. It was clear that Italy was losing the war, so several days after the invasion Mussolini was replaced and arrested in a remote mountain castle. Hitler sent commandos to rescue his friend from captivity. In April 1945, when German defence in North Italy collapsed, Mussolini was captured by Italian partisans and executed.

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The defenders

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Winston Churchill

Spoiler :

Winston Churchill kept warning of the Nazi danger in pre-war years. He was elected prime minister of Great Britain after the total collapse of the appeasement policy of his predecessor Neville Chamberlain. Chamberlain failed to understand that aggressors like Hitler can not be appeased. Churchill became prime minister on May 10, 1940, at the same day when the German Blitzkrieg invasion of France began. After the quick collapse of the French military, Britain itself was under a threat of a German amphibious invasion, and was attacked by the full force of the German Luftwaffe. It was also under a maritime siege by the German U-boat submarines. At these very difficult and dangerous times, Churchill, "the British Lion", excelled as a wartime leader. His fighting spirit raised the morale of the British people. He also forged a strong alliance with the US. Churchill is one of the main World War 2 leaders, and one of the most prominent national leaders in history.

Joseph Stalin

Spoiler :

Joseph Stalin was the very brutal Communist dictator of Russia (1928-1953). In the years before World War 2 Stalin murdered or imprisoned almost all of Russia's senior military officers, and millions of other Russian citizens, in a paranoid and unprecedented wave of political terror. This clearly weakened Russia and further encouraged Hitler to attack it. The pre-war pacifist strategy, military weakness, and anti-Communism of Britain and France led Stalin in August 1939 to decide that making a deal with Hitler is a better way to protect Russia from Hitler than making an alliance with Britain and France against him. As part of the deal Russia invaded half of Poland after Hitler started World War 2 by invading Poland. In June 1941, after conquering the rest of Europe, Hitler did what he promised for 18 years and invaded Russia. In addition to the great weakness caused by the absence of experienced senior officers because of Stalin's political murders, Stalin further damaged the Russian military's ability to fight by first obsessively ignoring all the intelligence warnings of the incoming German invasion, and later by obsessively enforcing a rigid and very wasteful defensive strategy which helped the German military to achieve tremendous victories in the summer of 1941 and brought the Germans all the way to Moscow. Only then Stalin realized that he must allow his Generals to fight the war more professionally, not obsessively. He made the brilliant General Zhukov his top military advisor and also sent him to command the forces directly in key battles. This finally allowed the huge Russian military to exploit its full potential and succeed. After the war ended, Stalin's horrible political terror quickly returned and continued until his death.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Spoiler :

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, president of the United States of America (1933-1945) initially followed a very strong political demand to remain neutral and isolate the country from foreign wars, but he realized that the Nazi aggression was a global threat and the total opposite to the values of democracy and freedom, and persuaded the Congress to allow selling weapons to Britain and France, later declaring that the US will become the "arsenal of democracy". In May 1941, when German expansion and its attacks on British shipping to the US increased, he declared a state of national emergency, and realistically assumed that US forces will eventually have to participate in fighting against Nazi Germany. When Germany invaded Russia, he extended the military aid to Russia too, and enormous amounts of American military equipment and material were transferred to Russia during the war, allowing the Russian military industry to focus on mass production of the main weapon systems and ammunition. Despite the strong sympathy of the American public in support of Britain and against Nazism, only an attack on the US could persuade the American public to go to war. The attack eventually came from the opposite direction when Japan surprise attacked the US naval and air bases in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in December 7, 1941. The destructive surprise attack ended American isolationism and the US joined the war and allied with Britain and Russia to defeat the aggressors Axis of Nazi Germany, militarist Japan, and Fascist Italy. The mighty American industry went into full war production effort which dwarfed those of both allies and enemies, allowing the relatively small US military forces to rapidly grow to a mighty force, and defeat Japan and help Britain and Russia defeat Germany and Italy. President Roosevelt died in April 1945, shortly before the end of the war, and was succeeded by vice president Harry S. Truman.

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The victims

Edouard Daladier

Spoiler :

Edouard Daladier was prime minister of France three times in 1933,1934, and again in April 1938. A supporter of the appeasement policy, he was not willing to go to war despite Hitler's series of pre-war aggression acts. In march 1940, already in World War 2, and with the French military passively deployed along the Maginot line of border fortifications, Daladier was replaced by Paul Reynaud, but remained in government as war minister. Two months later the German military shocked passive France in a surprise Blitzkrieg invasion and quickly defeated the large French military which was not ready for this kind of war, neither in spirit nor in equipment and tactics. Shortly before the French surrender, prime minister Reynaud replaced war minister Daladier with Charles De Gaulle, which was just a tank division commander, but he was the only commander in the French military which had some success against the invading Germans, and warned before the war of the weaknesses of the French military. De Gaulle's appointment was much too late to save France, and when France surrendered, De Gaulle fled to Britain and led the "free French" forces until the end of the war and later became post-war president of France. Daladier and Reynaud were arrested by the French puppet government established after the surrender and were handed to the Germans and imprisoned until the end of the war. Daladier shamelessly returned to French politics after the war for 12 more years and was a strong opponent of president De Gaulle.

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King Zog of Albania

Spoiler :

Went to exile when Albania was invaded in 1939 by Italy. Albania remained occupied until the end of the war and then became a Communist dictatorship.

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King George II

Spoiler :

King George II of the politically unstable Greece and his dictatorial prime minister Ioannis Metaxas insisted to remain neutral in World War 2, and repelled an Italian invasion which followed, but in 1941, shortly after Metaxas' death, the mighty Germany military came to help the weak Italian invaders and, despite support by a British military force, Greece was occupied by the Germans until it was liberated by the British in 1944. After the liberation Greece fell back into political instability which resulted in a civil war.

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King Leopold III of Belgium

Spoiler :

He was imprisoned by the Germans after the poorly equipped Belgian military was crushed by German Blitzkrieg invasion in May 1940. After the war, Leopold was accused of collaborating with the Germans and forced to remain in exile.

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Queen Wilhelmina of Holland

Spoiler :

Queen Wilhelmina of Holland and her government fled to London when Holland was invaded by the German military despite its neutrality. Holland surrendered after five days of German Blitzkrieg.

King Haakon VII of Norway

Spoiler :

King Haakon VII of Norway rejected repeated German demands to surrender, demands that came after a sudden amphibious and airborne German invasion which ignored Norway's declared neutrality and good relations with Germany. The German invasion forces shocked and quickly overwhelmed the surprised Norwegian defenses in all major cities except the capital, which enabled King Haakon and the government to escape to a remote small village. From that small village the king managed to broadcast his message of resistance to the Norwegian people. After narrowly escaping a German air attack which totally destroyed that village, the king and government fled to northern Norway, which still fought. When the small Norwegian military, and British forces which landed in northern Norway to help them, failed to stop the Germans, the king and government were evacuated to Britain, and Norway remained under German military occupation until the end of World War 2. Persistent Norwegian resistance, and Hitler's worry of a second British landing, made him keep a huge garrison of 300,000 German troops in Norway until the end of the war, practically reducing this massive force from the German army's order of battle.

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Edward Smigly-Rydz

Spoiler :

the military dictator of Poland fled abroad when the obsolete Polish army was crushed by the German Blitzkrieg invasion in September 1939. Two weeks after the Germans invaded, Poland was also invaded by Russia, following its secret agreement with Hitler. In June 1941, Nazi Germany occupied the Russian-held part of Poland when it attacked Russia. Following Hitler's racist theory and orders, the Nazi occupation of Poland was extremely brutal. The Nazi plan was to gradually decimate the Polish people and to reduce the remaining Poles to slaves. The 3 million jews of Poland were to be killed to the last one, either by murder or by being worked and starved to death as prisoners in the Nazi death camps. This organized genocide plan was gradually implemented by Nazi Germany during over five years of Nazi occupation of Poland. It cost the lives of nearly 3 millions Polish jews and millions of Christian Poles, destroyed the country, and deliberately caused tremendous human suffering. After World War 2 Poland became a Communist dictatorship under Russian influence.

Dr. Edvard Benes

Spoiler :

Dr. Edvard Benes was the elected president of Czechoslovakia between 1935 and October 1938 when he resigned when the appeasement policy of his French and British allies led them to support Hitler's demand to annex parts of Czechoslovakia. His successor,Dr. Emil Hacha, surrendered the rest of Czechoslovakia to Hitler in march 1939, under a threat of immediate German invasion, and was later arrested. Czechoslovakia remained under Nazi occupation until the end of World War 2. Dr. Benes led the Czech government-in-exile and after the war became president of Czechoslovakia again, but two years later, under strong Russian pressure, the country became a Communist dictatorship and Benes resigned and died shortly after.

King Christian X of Denmark

Spoiler :

King Christian X of Denmark and his government immediately decided to surrender, in the morning when the German surprise invasion started. The king remained in his country, and until late in the war there was very little Danish resistance to the occupation. In 1943 the king was put under house arrest. Denmark was liberated by The Allies at the end of World War 2.

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