Nazi Leaders In WWII Essay, Research Paper

Nazi Leaders in World War II-

Many people have contributed to the cruel treatment of human

beings, specifically Jews, in Nazi Germany during the second World

War. This is a report on the damage carried out by some of the Nazi

criminals working under the rule of Adolf Hitler. Many people

contributed in Hitler’s attempt to carry out his ‘Final Solution’.

Among these people are Ernst Roehm, Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Himmler,

and Hermann Wilhelm Goering. While I discuss how they partook in World

War Two, keep in mind their actions will, and have, left a mark on the

world forever.

Little is known about Ernst Roehm’s childhood. He was a quiet

boy who never went looking for trouble and didn’t express hatred

towards anyone, mostly because his parents were Libertarians and never

paid attention to the politics in Germany’s heartland. In college,

Hitler’s ideas and notions had a strong impact on Roehm’s personality.

Though Roehm never graduated, he joined the Free Corps, a group of

soldiers dedicated to changing injustices in the German government.

After a while, Roehm started to grow tired of the Free Corp’s non-

violent style, and he was tempted to be more of an activist in

government reform. Hitler, looking to recruit fellow officers in his

plan, then in it’s infancy, liked Roehm’s strong presence and

personality. Roehm, jobless and nowhere to go, joined Hitler’s office.

After Hitler was elected into office some years later, he split his

dictatorship into different divisions. Roehm, being one of the

original officers, was chosen as head of the Sturmabteilung, or SA,

commonly referred to as the Brownshirts and storm-troopers. By 1932,

the Brownshirts had reached more than 400,000 members. All types of

men who Hitler saw fit enough to join were members. Among them were

ex-Free Corps soldiers like Roehm, students who weren’t able to find

jobs, shopkeepers who went out of business or weren’t profitable

enough, the unemployed, uneducated, and common criminals. As you can

see, they were a very diverse bunch. Roehm had full power over where

they demonstrated and protested. What was their cause? None really.

They were merely an idea of Hitler’s to spread his popularity, as well

as the Nazi Party’s. They roamed the streets of Munich, often drunk,

singing racist stanzas from songs, beating anyone they thought,

judging just from appearance who they thought was a Jew or a

Communist. Roehm screamed to the marching storm-troopers, “We will

brawl our way to greatness.” He enjoyed violence for it’s own sake,

and he is quoted as saying to reporters after they burned down a

kosher diner, in which he also had the left side of his nose shot off,

“Since I am an immature and wicked man, war and unrest appeal to me

more than order.” In one incident, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann

Goering, heads of other Nazi divisions, jealous of Roehm and the rest

of the Brownshirt’s public popularity, even though they had more

power internally, conspired against Roehm and the storm-troopers. They

forged letters and documents to Hitler in Roehm’s name, in which

confessions of high treason were written. Many members of the

storm-troopers were executed. When Hitler himself came to partake in

the executions, they started screaming “Heil Hitler”, the salute to

Hitler. Hitler realized that the documents had been forged, and let

the rest, including Roehm go free. Hitler and the storm-troopers never

found out who had written them. Another incident of a much greater

magnitude was ‘the night of long knives’, on June 30, 1934. Hitler cut

off relations with all his fellow branches except the SS. He let most

of them all go, except members of the storm-troopers. They were all

executed, and Roehm insisted that Hitler kill him. He felt any other

person to kill him would be considered unfaithful to Hitler and an

undignified death. Hitler killed him and in all of World War Two Ernst

Roehm remained the only person to ever die by Hitler’s bullets.

Another henchman of Hitler’s, Joseph Goebbels, born in 1897,

in Rheydt, Germany and the son of peasants, probably had the most

effect on Germany’s society and public life. A childhood bone disease

stunted his growth, so he didn’t grow more than 5 feet and he walked

with a limp. His actions are well documented since he kept a diary of

almost everything in his political life. Thin-faced and slender,

before working for Hitler, he was a successful playwright of scripts

about political satire. He was the man who convinced Hitler to run for

President of Germany on February 22, 1933, against Paul von

Hindenburg, the president at the time, in an eventual successful

campaign. After Hitler was elected as the new dictator over Germany,

Goebbels was elected as the official Propaganda Minister. He had under

his legal jurisdiction the power to control Germany’s common society.

He tried to convince Nazis to become more devout and to convince

people who weren’t Nazis to join the party. He controlled all the

publications, radio programs, films, and arts. Out of all that was

deemed inappropriate by Goebbels, music prevailed the best, as he was

an avid fan of classical music. Still, all Jewish music was banned.

Goebbels often chatted with fellow officer Hermann Goering about what

to do with the Jews they found on raids of their homes. Goebbels said

they should clean up the glass from Kristallnacht, the ‘night of

broken glass’, in which Jewish synagogues were destroyed, and then the

Nazis would turn the vacant spaces into parking lots. He also said

Jews should be excluded from everything. After Goering agreed, these

statements sadly came true. On another occasion, on May 10, 1933, a

book-burning took place, one of many during those years in Germany and

the countries it defeated, right across from the University of Berlin.

The Nazis burned world-renowned authors as well as German books while

Goebbels yelled, “The soul of the German people can again express

itself. These flames not only illuminate the final end of an old era;

they also light up a new!” During Germany’s downfall, he poisoned his

six children, and then at the request of Goebbels, a fellow Nazi shot

him and his wife Magda to death in 1945.

Adolf Himmler, born in 1900 in Munich, held many ranks in his

busy political life. He ordered the deaths of millions, beginning

with the ‘blood purge’ in 1934 and ending with the systematic killings

of Jews in World War Two concentration camps. He followed Hitler since

1923, and since then he became the chief of police of Germany in 1936,

the Minister of the Interior in 1943, the Minister of Home Defense in

1944. Today he is believed to be the head cohort in coordinating the

Reichstag fire, after following Hitler’s orders. The Reichstag

building was the democratic party’s headquarters. On February 27,

1933, in hopes of disrupting the proceedings going on that evening,

Himmler and the rest of the SS he commanded snuck into the building

through the heating tunnels and place gas bombs throughout. The Nazi

Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels blamed the fire on the Communists.

This gave the Nazis an excuse to bring down the Communist Party by

search and seizures, arrests, and killings, using the excuse that they

were withholding evidence from the fire. Toward the end of the war,

Himmler was the head of the SS Police, Gestapo, slave camps, and

directed the resettlement of Eastern Europeans with Aryans to persuade

the Europeans to become like them. He committed suicide in 1945.

Second to Hitler as the leader of Nazi germany, Hermann

Wilhelm Goering was one of the few Nazis with a good record intact

after World War One. Born in 1893, in Rosenheim, Germany, he was the

Reich Marshal, and he commanded the air force. After he became a

follower of Hitler’s in 1920, a couple of years later he was elected

the president of the Reichstag, the German legislature, in 1928. This

gave him the power to frustrate democratic procedures, and help Hitler

get unlimited power in 1933. Before the outbreak of World War Two, he

directed the buildup of Germany’s war industry. At the start of World

War Two, Hitler appointed him chief aide. He was completely ruthless

with opponents and rivals, and he was convicted of war crimes at

Nuremburg in 1946. Right before he was about to be hanged, he

swallowed a bottle of poison.

—

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