Iron Antonescu

Ion Antonescu
AKA 'Conducator' (Leader), AKA 'Red Dog'.
Country: Romania.
Kill tally: About 300,000 Romanian Jews and up to 500,000 Romanian soldiers.
Background: Romania achieves full independence from the Ottoman Empire on 3 March 1878. In March 1881 the Romanian parliament proclaims the country a kingdom. Led by King Carol I, Romania's first constitutional monarch, the new nation is deeply nationalistic and determined to maintain its freedom. However, the ethnically Romanian regions of Transylvania to the west, and Bukovina and Bessarabia to the north and east remain outside the state, with Transylvania staying under the sway of Hungry and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Meanwhile, Romania's Jewish population begins to expand rapidly during the 19th Century, mainly as a result of immigration. By 1899 the population has grown to 269,000. By 1939 it is estimated at 760,000, making Romania's Jewish community the third largest in Eastern Europe, after the Soviet Union and Poland.
Many Romanians see the newcomers as an economic threat. Jews face persecution and most are prevented from taking Romanian citizenship. More background.
Mini biography: Born in Pitesti, about 110 km northwest of Bucharest, on 15 June 1882, into an average family. Though an avowed antisemite, Antonescu will become engaged to two separate Jewish women and marry a third. His father will also divorce his mother to marry a Jewish woman.
Antonescu receives his education in French military schools and pursues a career in the army. By 1907 he has risen to the rank of lieutenant.
1907 - Antonescu participates in the suppression of a peasant revolt in and around the city of Galati, about 180 km northeast of Bucharest, gaining the attention of his superiors for his initiative and ruthlessness.
1911 - He graduates from the military academy.
1913 - Antonescu participates in the Second Balkan War against Bulgaria, winning Romania's highest military decoration.
1914 - The First World War begins early in August, with the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary) pitted against the Triple Entente (Britain, France and Russia). Romania stays out of the conflict, waiting to see which side may prevail.
King Carol I dies and is succeeded by his nephew, Ferdinand. Ferdinand's wife, Queen Marie, the British-born princess of Edinburgh, is the real power behind the throne. It is Marie who negotiates the conditions for Romania's participation in the war. The price will be Romanian sovereignty over Transylvania, The Banat and Bukovina (all in Hungary) and Bessarabia (in Russia).
1916 - The Triple Entente agrees in full Queen Marie's terms. On 27 August Romania declares war on Austria-Hungary. The war initially goes poorly for Romania, with Central Power forces counterattacking, occupying Bucharest, and forcing Romania to cede territory and pay reparations. However, the situation reverses when the Triple Entente gains the upper hand over the Central Powers.
During the war Antonescu serves as operational chief-of-staff to army commander Prezan. Towards the end of the conflict he is made chief-of-operations on the army general staff.
1918 - The war ends on 11 November with the signing of a general armistice. The Central Powers have been defeated. The Allies now begin to carve up the spoils.
Romania is more than doubled in size when its claim to Transylvania, The Banat, Bukovina, and Bessarabia is formally recognised by the Allies. The country's first free elections are held in 1919.
However, the acquisition of the new territory is not without cost. The integration of foreign nationalities and institutions leads to an increase in Romanian nationalism, discrimination against Hungarians and other minorities, and a rise in antisemitism.
1922 - In October King Ferdinand becomes the monarch of Greater Romania. The following year a new constitution is introduced establishing a highly centralised state and giving the king the power to appoint the prime minister. The constitution also grants citizenship to Romanian Jews.
Antonescu is meanwhile appointed as military attaché in Paris. From 1923 to 1926 he serves in the same capacity in London, where he meets and marries a French-Jewish woman, who bears him his only child. The couple later divorce and their child dies at an early age.
1924 - The Romanian Communist Party is banned because of its ties with the Soviet Union but continues to operate underground.
1929 - Despite experiencing rapid growth following the First World War, Romania's agriculture-dependent economy is thrown into crisis when the New York Stock Exchange crash of October sees world grain prices collapse.
1930s - The "agricultural crisis" helps feed the growth of the virulently antisemitic and anticommunist 'Iron Guard', the paramilitary wing of the 'Legion of the Archangel Michael', an ultra-nationalistic Romanian fascist group founded on 24 June 1927 by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu.
The Guard advocates war against Jews and communists, violently confronting its opponents on the streets and clandestinely organising and committing political assassinations. Its members are known as 'Legionnaires', after Codreanu's original group.
Supported and funded by Nazi Germany, the Iron Guard will become the largest fascist movement in the Balkans, with its growing influence contributing significantly to the political instability that plagues Romania throughout the decade.
Codreanu is elected to parliament in July 1931. The following year five Legionnaires are voted into parliament. In 1935 there are 4,200 Legionary sub-branches, called "nests", within Romania. By January 1937 the number has grown to 12,000. By the end of that year there are 34,000.
However, the Legionnaires and their Iron Guard do not go unopposed. Among those engaged in the fight against the fascists is the young Nicolae Ceausescu, a member of the communist youth movement who is destined to become a future dictator of Romania.
France, Romania's international patron, also applies pressure, and the Iron Guard is supposedly dissolved at the end of 1933. In reality it continues, building ties with the Nazi Party in Germany and, under the name 'Totul Pentru Tara' (All For The Country), winning 16% of the vote in elections held in 1937 and, with 66 seats, becoming the third largest party in the parliament.
1930 - Following Ferdinand's death Prince Carol II is proclaimed king.
1934 - Antonescu is made a general and appointed as chief of the Romanian general staff.
1937 - King Carol II hands government to a far-right coalition that bars Jews from the civil and army service and forbids them from buying property and practicing certain professions. Antonescu is appointed as minister of defence.
1938 - With the political turmoil mounting, Carol suspends the constitution on 12 February and assumes dictatorial powers. Rigid censorship and tight police surveillance are imposed, along with discriminatory measures aimed at minority races.
On 19 April the police arrest and imprison Codreanu and other Iron Guard leaders and crack down on the Guard's rank and file. On 29 November Codreanu and 13 Iron Guards are shot dead by the police, allegedly while they are attempting to escape custody. However, it is widely believed that the killings have been staged on the order of King Carol II.
1939 - On 23 August Soviet leader Joseph Stalin signs a nonaggression pact with Germany's Nazi dictator, Adolf Hitler, carving up Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence, with the USSR claiming Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, part of the Balkans, including Romania, and half of Poland.
German troops invade Poland on 1 September. Britain and France declare war on Germany two days later. The Second World War has begun.
Romania's prime minister proclaims the country's neutrality on 6 September but is assassinated by the Iron Guard on 21 September. King Carol II tries to maintain neutrality for several months more, but is finally compelled to strike a deal with Hitler.
Romania is subsequently forced to give Bessarabia and northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union, cede the north of Transylvania to Hungary, and return Southern Dobruja to Bulgaria.
This loss of about one-third of the country's area and population causes a backlash against King Carol. Faced with the beginning of rebellion led by the Iron Guard, he suspends the constitution and appoints Antonescu as prime minister.
1940 - Antonescu is appointed prime minister on 5 September. The following day Antonescu, supported by the Iron Guard and renegade military officers and backed by Germany, demands that King Carol II abdicate in favour of his son Prince Michael and leave the country.
Together with Horia Sima, chief of the Iron Guard, Antonescu establishes the National Legionary Government. Antonescu is named 'Conducator' (Leader) and Sima appointed as deputy prime minister.
German forces enter Romania on 7 October. Antonescu brings Romania into the war on the side of the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy and Japan) on 23 November. He meets with Hitler, allows Nazi forces to occupy the country, and introduces stricter antisemitic laws and restrictions on Jewish, Greek, and Armenian businessmen.
Antonescu will meet again with Hitler in January and May 1941. Under Antonescu's leadership Romania will become one of Germany's staunchest allies, providing the Nazis with food, fuel and more combat troops than all of Germany's other allies combined.
Meanwhile, with Antonescu's blessing, the Iron Guard unleashes a reign of terror, murdering prominent associates of the deposed King Carol in revenge for Codreanu's death, and massacring Jews. However, when the Iron Guard's activities start to become too disruptive, German and Romanian soldiers begin to round up and disarm its members.
1941 - On 21 January the Iron Guard rebels and stages an attempted coup against Antonescu, killing 127 Jews during a three-day rampage. After several weeks German and Romanian crush the uprising and force the Guard to disband. Antonescu then assumes dictatorial powers, adopting the title 'Marshal' in October and becoming chief of state as well as president of the council of ministers.
Further anti-Jewish measures are now introduced, including the establishment of a National Romanianisation Centre with the goal of removing Jews from Romanian life.
Germany invades the Soviet Union on 22 June. Supported by almost one million Romanian troops, the Germans advance swiftly east towards Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), Stalingrad (now Volgograd) and Moscow, where they are halted on 6 December by a Russian counteroffensive.
Antonescu later tells investigators in the Soviet Union: "Since Hitler's offer to initiate a joint campaign against the USSR corresponded to my own aggressive intentions, I announced my agreement to participate in the attack on the Soviet Union and pledged myself to prepare the necessary number of Romanian troops and, at the same time, to increase deliveries of the oil and food required by the German armies."
The invasion is initially favourable for Romania, with Hitler honouring an agreement to return sovereignty over Bessarabia and northern Bukovina as well as allowing the country to annex Soviet lands immediately east of the Dniester River, including Odessa.
However, Jews in both 'Old Romania' and the occupied territories suffer increased discrimination and violence as they come to be viewed as potential allies and spies of the Soviet Union.
On 19 June Antonescu orders the expulsion of 40,000 Jews from villages and towns in 'Old Romania' to detention camps and urban ghettos.
On 25 June German and Romanian troops kill at least 900 Jews at Iasi, the country's second city and the capital of the northern province of Moldavia. Hundreds more die as they are transported from the city. Some estimates put the total number killed during the pogrom as high as 10,000.
On 8 July Antonescu tells his army to be "merciless". "Sugary and incorporeal humanism is inappropriate in this situation," Antonescu states. "I think that the Jews should be forced to leave Bessarabia and Bukovina. And Ukrainian people must leave the country also. ... I am not disturbed if the world should consider us barbarians. You can use machine-guns if it is necessary. And I tell you that the law does not exist. ... So, let us give up all the formalities and use this complete freedom. I assume all the responsibility and claim that the law does not exist."
About 310,000 Jews are subsequently purged from Bukovina and Bessarabia. Of these about 160,000 are killed outright by German and Romanian army units assisted by Ukrainian and Romanian civilians. On 15 September Antonescu orders the expulsion of the 150,000 survivors to concentration camps and urban ghettos in the 'Transnistria' region of the Ukraine, a Nazi killing ground where more than 800,000 European Jews die. Of the 150,000 Romanian Jews sent to Transnistria only about 50,000 will survive. From December 1943 they will be allowed to return to their homelands.
On 22 October, following an explosion at the Romanian headquarters in Odessa, Antonescu orders that for every Romanian or German officer killed, 200 persons are to be executed. For every Romanian or German enlisted man killed, 100 will die. The order will cost 25,000 Odessa Jews their lives when the city is burnt on 23 October in retaliation for an attack by partisans on the army's headquarters in the town.
All told, about 420,000 members of Romania's pre-war Jewish community of 760,000 die during the war. About 260,000 are killed in Bessarabia, Bukovina, and in the camps in Transnistria. In northern Transylvania about 120,000 of the region's 150,000 Jews are killed or deported by Hungary's Nazi government to concentration camps.
However, most Jews in Old Romania will survive the war, principally because Antonescu refuses to allow mass deportations of 300,000 of them to Nazi concentration camps, fearing that the economy would collapse as a result. It is also believed that Antonescu's policy towards the Jews changes once he realises that Germany will loose the war.
Meanwhile, the United States enters the war when the Japanese air force bombs the US naval base at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii on 7 December.
1943 - The war turns against Germany in the winter of 1942-43 when the Sixth Army is defeated at Stalingrad. Over 500,000 German-led troops are killed during the battle, including the majority of the Romanian soldiers accompanying the Germans.
By the end of 1943, the Soviets have broken through the German siege of Leningrad and recaptured much of the Ukrainian Republic. They now begin to move west towards Romania and Germany.
1944 - The Red Army crosses into Romania on 20 August. On 23 August King Michael, aided by a number of army officers and armed Communist-led civilians, and supported by the National Democratic Bloc, orders the arrest of Antonescu and seizes control of the government.
The king quickly restores the 1923 constitution, orders a cease-fire with the Allied forces, and declares war on Germany. The Red Army occupies Bucharest on 31 August 1944. On 12 September Romania and the Soviet Union sign an armistice.
Romania agrees to pay reparations of US$300 million, repeal anti-Jewish laws, ban fascist groups, and cede Bessarabia and northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union. However, the country regains sovereignty over northern Transylvania.
Romanian troops now side with the Soviet forces in the advance against Germany and its allies, and about 120,000 of them will die fighting for the liberation of Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
Antonescu is taken to the Soviet Union for interrogation before being returned to Romania to stand trial as a war criminal.
1945 - The war ends on 7 May when Germany surrenders unconditionally. Romania's military causalities total at least 230,000 troops killed and 180,000 missing or captured. About 130,000 soldiers have been deported to the Soviet Union, where many have perished in prison camps.
In total, about 985,000 Romanians have died during the war.
1946 - In May Antonescu is prosecuted for war crimes. He is condemned to death on 17 May and executed by firing squad on 1 June at the Fort Jilava Prison in a suburb of Bucharest.
A leftist government wins what is considered to be a rigged general election held on 19 November. Romania falls behind the Soviet Union's 'Iron Curtain'. With Soviet backing, the Romanian Communist Party takes control of the government. King Michael is forced to abdicate.
Postscript
1948 - On 13 April the government proclaims the Romanian People's Republic and adopts a Stalinist constitution. Romania will remain under communist rule until December 1989, when Nicolae Ceausescu is overthrown in a violent revolution.
1997 - In March six right-wing members of the Romania's now democratic government petition the country's prosecutor-general to initiate legal proceedings for the rehabilitation of Antonescu. The government is also asked to erect an official commemorative statue of Antonescu. After a national and international controversy the proceedings are halted.
1998 - On 29 November it is reported that a contemporary incarnation of the Iron Guard plans to officially register as a political party under the new name 'National Union for Christian Rebirth'. The same day, a crowd of Guardists gather in a forest near Bucharest to mark the 60th anniversary of the killing of Iron Guard founder, Corneliu Codreanu.
1999 - In January the Romanian government makes the study of the 'Holocaust' mandatory in schools and universities. Romanian teachers will undergo special training in Israel to teach the courses.
2002 - In March the government makes the public denial of the Holocaust a punishable offence and bans the construction of monuments to people guilty of crimes against humanity. Some existing statues and monuments honouring Antonescu are demolished, fascist and xenophobic organisations and symbols are outlawed, and a memorial to Holocaust victims is constructed with government support.
2003 - After decades of denial about the role of Romania in the Holocaust, the country's government issues a statement on 17 June saying that the Antonescu regime "was guilty of grave war crimes, pogroms, and mass deportations of Romanian Jews to territories occupied or controlled by the Romanian Army" from 1940 to 1944.
The Antonescu regime also employed "methods of discrimination and extermination which were part of the Holocaust," the statement says.
In October the government announces that it has set up a commission of inquiry into the period.
"We want to be able to offer ... to all teachers, students, to all Romanians as well as historians and international public opinion documents, studies and other materials needed for knowing and understanding the Holocaust in Romania," President Ion Iliescu says.
The commission is to be headed by the Romanian-born Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.
Only about 14,000 Jews now live in Romania.
2004 - On 11 October Romania marks its first 'Holocaust Day'. Addressing parliamentarians and Jewish leaders, Romanian President Ion Iliescu admits that antisemitism was a state-sponsored ideology before and during the Second World War.
"We must not forget or minimise the darkest chapter of Romania's recent history, when Jews were the victims of the Holocaust," he says.
Comment: There are enough contradictions in Antonescu's character to warrant further investigation. He was deeply antisemitic, believing there was "a conspiracy of world Jewry against Romania" and that Jews were evil incarnate, but was engaged to two Jewish women and married a third.
He sent tens of thousands of Jews and other minorities off to die in the death camps of Transnistria, but when he realised that the game was up for Hitler's Third Reich allowed the survivors to return and stopped the deportation of Romania's remaining Jewish population.
He believed that he had been chosen by "higher powers" to usher in a golden age in Romania's history but ended up creating the conditions that would allow a takeover by the communists who he hated and who would bring the country to its knees.
He could be subject to violent mood swings, reputedly needed constant medical supervision, and earned the nickname 'Red Dog' because of his red hair, displays of arrogance, and willingness to spill other people's blood.
More information
Links are to external sites.
Romania - A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies Series)
Antisemitism and Xenophobia Today - Romania
History of the Iron Guard
Romania.org - Romania's Portal Site
Simon Wiesenthal Centre - Multimedia Learning Centre Online - Ion Antonescu
Simon Wiesenthal Centre - Multimedia Learning Centre Online - Romania
Simon Wiesenthal Centre - Multimedia Learning Centre Online - Transnistria
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Adi Amin

Idi Amin
Full name Idi Amin Dada Oumee. AKA 'Big Daddy', AKA 'Butcher of Africa', AKA 'Conqueror of the British Empire', AKA 'Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea'.
Country: Uganda.
Kill tally: 100,000-500,000 (most sources say 300,000).
Background: The British Government declares Uganda its protectorate in 1894. Surrounding kingdoms are incorporated, with the borders becoming fixed in 1914. Independence is achieved peacefully on 9 October 1962 but rising tensions between the country's different ethnic groups see Prime Minister Milton Obote impose a new republican constitution establishing himself as president and abolishing all the country's kingdoms. Ethnic tensions continue to rise. Idi Amin seizes power in a coup in January 1971.
Mini biography: Born between 1923 and 1925 into the Kakwa tribe in Koboko, near Arua in the northwest corner of Uganda, close to the borders with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan. His father is a farmer and a follower of Islam. His mother is a member of the Lugbara tribe and is said to practice sorcery.
(Amin's younger brother, Amule, claims that Amin was in fact born in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, and that their father was working as a policeman there at the time.)
Amin's parents separate soon after his birth. Amin is raised by his mother, who becomes a camp follower of the King's African Rifles, a regiment of the British colonial army. She will have more children from other relationships, with Amin becoming the third of eight siblings.
Amin receives only a rudimentary education but excels at sports and reportedly converts to Islam at an early age.
1946 - He joins the King's African Rifles as an assistant cook. In 1948 he is promoted to corporal. By 1958 he is sergeant-major and platoon commander.
1951 - Amin becomes the heavyweight boxing champion of Uganda, holding the title until 1960.
1952 - He serves in the British action against the Mau Mau revolt in Kenya (1952-56) and is described by officials as "a splendid type and a good (rugby) player, but virtually bone from the neck up, and needs things explained in words of one letter."
One former commander remembers Amin "as a splendid and reliable soldier and a cheerful and energetic man." Another former commander describes Amin as "an incredible person who certainly isn't mad - very shrewd, very cunning and a born leader."
1959 - He is made a warrant officer with the rank of 'effendi', a position specially created by the colonial army for noncommissioned Africans with leadership potential.
1961 - He rises to the rank of lieutenant, becoming one of only two native Ugandans to be commissioned during British rule.
1962 - Troops under Amin's command commit the 'Turkana Massacre' while conducting an operation to suppress cattle stealing by tribesmen spilling into the north of Uganda from the neighbouring Turkana region of Kenya. Investigations by the British authorities in Kenya reveal that the victims of the massacre had been tortured, beaten to death and, in some cases, buried alive. However, with Uganda's independence only months away, the authorities decide against court-martialling Amin for his "overzealous" methods.
Uganda achieves independence from Britain on 9 October. The king of the Baganda tribe, Sir Edward Mutesa, becomes the new nation's first president. The government is led by Prime Minister Milton Obote, who Amin supports.
Overlooking the charges of torture, Obote promotes Amin to major in 1963 and to colonel and deputy commander of the army and air force in 1964, the same year that Amin helps put down an army mutiny at Jinja, Uganda's second city.
Shortly after independence Amin is sent to Israel on a paratrooper training course. He will become a favourite of the Israelis when he acts as a conduit for the supply of arms and ammunition to Israeli-backed rebels fighting a war in southern Sudan.
1966 - Following a financial scandal implicating Obote and Amin in gold smuggling, and on the back of growing opposition from King Mutesa, Obote suspends the constitution, arrests half his cabinet, and installs himself as president for life. King Mutesa is driven from his palace in a military operation led by Amin and forced into exile. A new constitution abolishes all the country's kingdoms.
Amin is subsequently promoted to major-general and appointed chief of the army and air force. He begins to build a support base in the army by recruiting from his own Kakwa tribe. However, his relations with Obote start to sour.
1969 - In December an unsuccessful attempt is made to assassinate Obote. Brigadier Pierino Okoya, the deputy chief of the army and Amin's sole rival among senior army officers, tells Obote and Amin that the net is closing in on the perpetrators and that all will be revealed at a second meeting scheduled for 26 January 1970.
1970 - On 25 January Okoya and his wife are shot dead at their home. Relations between Obote and Amin deteriorate further following the murder. In November Obote removes Amin from his command positions and places him in an administrative role.
1971 - Amin discovers that Obote intends to arrest him on charges of misappropriating millions of dollars of military funds. On 25 January, while Obote is out of the country attending the Commonwealth Conference in Singapore, Amin stages a coup that is later reported to have been backed by Israel and welcomed by the British.
Amin's military government accuses Obote and his regime of corruption, economic mismanagement, suppressing democracy, and failing to maintain law and order. Obote later calls Amin "the greatest brute an African mother has ever brought to life."
The coup is initially supported by Ugandans, with Amin promising to abolish Obote's secret police, free all political prisoners, introduce economic reforms, and quickly return the country to civilian rule. However, elections will never be held during Amin's reign.
"I am not an ambitious man, personally," Amin says after taking power, "I am just a soldier with a concern for my country and its people."
Amin is declared president and chief of the armed forces. Almost immediately he initiates mass executions of officers and troops he believes to be loyal to Obote. Thirty-two army officers die when dynamite blows up the cell in which they are being held at the Makindye Prison in Kampala. Overall, as many as two-thirds of the army's 9,000 soldiers are executed during Amin's first year in power.
In foreign affairs, Amin is initially pro-West and inclined towards Britain and Israel. His first overseas trip as president is a state visit to Israel. This is followed a separate state visit to London that includes a meeting with Queen Elizabeth II.
However, his position changes after he returns from a trip to Libya around the end of 1971.
1972 - Now determined to make Uganda "a black man's country", Amin expels the country's 40,000-80,000 Indians and Pakistanis in the closing months of the year, reportedly after receiving a message from God during a dream.
"I am going to ask Britain to take responsibility for all Asians in Uganda who are holding British passports, because they are sabotaging the economy of the country," Amin declares at the start of August.
The Asians, most of who are third-generation descendants of workers brought to Uganda by the British colonial administration, are given 90 days to leave the country and are only allowed to take what they can carry. "If they do not leave they will find themselves sitting on the fire," Amin warns. The businesses, homes and possessions they leave behind are distributed without compensation to Amin's military favourites.
With the true nature of Amin's regime becoming apparent, the British and Israeli governments begin to back-pedal on their support, refusing to sell him more arms.
Amin then looks to Libya for aid, promising Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi that he will turn Uganda into an Islamic state. The Soviet Union also provides aid and arms for a time.
Amin now challenges Britain and the United States, breaks relations with Israel, and throws his support behind the Palestinian liberation movement. British property in Uganda is appropriated, business relations between the two countries are restricted, and those Britons remaining in Uganda are threatened with expulsion.
To secure his regime Amin launches a campaign of persecution against rival tribes and Obote supporters, murdering between 100,000 and 500,000 (most sources say 300,000).
Among those to die are ordinary citizens, former and serving Cabinet ministers, the chief justice, Supreme Court judges, diplomats, academics, educators, prominent Roman Catholic and Anglican clergy, senior bureaucrats, medical practitioners, bankers, tribal leaders, business executives, journalists and a number of foreigners.
In some cases entire villages are wiped out. So many corpses are thrown into the Nile that workers at one location have to continuously fish them out to stop the intake ducts at a nearby dam from becoming clogged.
The size of the army is increased, and much of the country's budget is diverted from civilian to military spending. Military tribunals are placed above the civil courts, soldiers are appointed to top government posts, parliament is dissolved and civilian Cabinet ministers are informed that they will be subject to military discipline.
Ruling by decree, Amin also creates his own security apparatus to identify and eliminate opponents. At its height, the security force will consist of about 18,000 men serving in three squads - the Public Safety Unit, the State Research Bureau and the military police. Amin's Presidential Guard also doubles as a death squad, as well as protecting the dictator from the many assassination attempts made against him.
As terror reigns Uganda's economy begins to collapse, partially through mismanagement and partially as a result of the expulsion of the Indians and Pakistanis, who had formed the country's economic backbone.
1975 - Amin promotes himself to field marshal and awards himself the Victoria Cross. The following year he declares himself president for life.
During 1975 he stages a publicity stunt for the world media, forcing white residents of Kampala to carry him on a throne then kneel before him and recite an oath of loyalty.
In the summer, Denis Hills, a Uganda-based British subject, is sentenced to death by the regime for describing Amin as a "village tyrant". The sentence is dropped only after the British foreign secretary travels to Kampala to plead for Hills' life.
Hills, who is eventually freed, later warns against viewing Amin as a buffoon or murderer, explaining that Amin's "aggressive black national leadership" had won him many admirers in Africa.
"(Amin) has the successful tribal chief's compensatory qualities for his lack of formal education: cunning, a talent for survival, personal strength and courage, an ability to measure his opponents weaknesses and his subject's wishes," Hills says.
"It is not enough to dismiss Amin as a buffoon or murderer. ... He is an African reality. He has realised an African dream. The creation of a truly black state. He has called into being a new crude, but vigorous, middle class of technicians and businessmen."
Meanwhile, Amin takes up the rotating position of head of the Organisation for African Unity, but is largely seen as an embarrassment. During the same period, Uganda is appointed to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
1976 - Amin becomes personally involved in hostage negotiations with Israel when pro-Palestinian guerrillas hijack an Air France passenger jet carrying 105 Israelis and Jews on 27 June and order it fly to Entebbe in Uganda. However, he is deeply humiliated when Israeli commandos stage a successful raid and rescue the passengers on 4 July.
Only two of the hostages are killed during the 58-minute operation and only one is left behind; Dora Bloch, a British-Israeli grandmother who had been released by the hijackers for medical treatment.
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin later accuses Amin of "collaborating with the terrorists while using deceit and false pretences" during the hostage negotiations. Amin is also accused of allowing reinforcements to join the original four hijackers.
In the wake of the Entebbe raid a furious Amin has Dora Bloch and more than 200 senior officers and government officials executed. He also expels foreigners from Uganda and unleashes a new round of violence, ordering the execution of anyone suspected of opposing him.
At the end of July Britain breaks off diplomatic relations with Amin's regime. Amin declares that he has beaten the British and confers upon himself the title of 'Conqueror of the British Empire'.
1977 - In January Amin accuses the Anglican archbishop of Uganda of conspiring in an invasion plot. The next day the archbishop and two Cabinet ministers are murdered.
The US, meanwhile, cuts off aid to Uganda, with President Jimmy Carter saying that Amin's policies "disgusted the entire civilised world."
1978 - The price of coffee, Uganda's main export, begins to fall, further damaging the already staggering Ugandan economy. Armed rebellions break out in the southwest, coup attempts become an ever-present threat, and the Libyans begin to cut aid.
In an attempt to divert attention from the country's internal problems, Amin launches an attack on Tanzania, a neighbouring country to the south, at the end of October. Tanzanian troops, assisted by armed Ugandan exiles, quickly put Amin's army to flight and counter-invade.
1979 - Beating back the Ugandan's heavy resistance, the invading Tanzanian forces take Kampala on 11 April. Amin flees to Libya, taking his four wives, several of his 30 mistresses and about 20 of his children.
After begin asked to leave Libya he lives for a time in Iraq before finally settling in the port city of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, where he is allowed to stay provided he keeps out of politics. The Saudis provide him with a monthly stipend of about US$1,400, domestic servants, cooks, drivers and cars. He leads a comfortable life with his four wives in a modest house.
Besides a huge death toll, Amin has left Uganda with an annual inflation rate of 200%, a national debt of US$320 million, an agricultural sector in tatters, closed factories and ruined businesses.
1980 - Milton Obote returns to power in Uganda following a general election. Obote's second administration is said to be at least as violent as Amin's, with security forces mercilessly combating an insurgency movement. According to the current government of Uganda, more than 500,000 civilians die as a result of the conflict. Obote is once again ousted in July 1985.
1989 - Amin attempts to return to Uganda to reclaim power but is identified at Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), and forced to return to Saudi Arabia.
1999 - Amin gives an interview to an Ugandan newspaper, saying he likes to play the accordion, fish, swim, recite from the Koran and read. He expresses no remorse for the abuses of his regime and is reported to say, "I'm very happy now, much happier now then when I was president."
2001 - It is reported that Amin wishes to return to Uganda. He continues to be popular in his home province and begins to fund the rebuilding of family properties destroyed by the Tanzanian troops who expelled him in 1979.
The Ugandan Government says that Amin is free to return but would have to "answer for his sins" and would be dealt with according to the law. Amin's relatives are able to travel to and from Uganda, and several of his children live and work there.
2002 - Uganda officially celebrates Amin's downfall for the first time.
2003 - In July Amin is reported to be in a coma and on life support in the intensive care unit of the King Faisal specialist hospital in Jeddah, where he has been receiving treatment for hypertension and general fatigue for three months. He had been admitted to the hospital with high blood pressure on 18 July. It is also reported that he is suffering from kidney failure but has refused treatment for the condition.
The current president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, says he will arrest Amin if he returns to the country alive but if he dies abroad his body could be brought back for burial.
"If Amin comes back breathing or conscious I will arrest him because he committed crimes here," Museveni says, adding that if his body is brought back for burial "we shall not give him state honours. He will be buried like any other ordinary Ugandan."
Amin dies in hospital of complications due to multiple organ failure at 8:20 a.m. on 16 August. He is buried in Jeddah's Ruwais cemetery during a small funeral ceremony just hours after his death.
Comment: By most accounts an illiterate and gluttonous buffoon, Amin has become the subject of many bizarre rumours and myths. There are stories of cannibalism, of feeding the corpses of his victims to crocodiles, of keeping severed heads in a freezer at his home and bringing them out on occasions for "talks" - most or all of which are unsubstantiated, but not necessarily untrue. He is known to have admired the German dictator Adolf Hitler and is quoted as saying that Hitler "was right to burn six million Jews." It is also said that he planned to have a statue of Hitler constructed in Kampala.
During his rule, Amin was a subject of ridicule in the West. His many outlandish statements were generally seen as somewhat eccentric if not a complete joke. The satirical British magazine 'Punch' at one time ran a weekly column supposedly written by Amin. There was even an irreverent pop song about him that did well in the charts. And Idi Amin would be a joke if his legacy was not so cruel.
But perhaps it's not just Amin's cruelty to which we should look when seeking answers for the havoc he wrought in Uganda. While there's a lot of history to all the countries of Africa, and while the continent was far from peaceful before the arrival of Europeans, it's too often the case that wherever there was a colonial administration there is now a can of worms.
We'll never know how Africa would have developed if it hadn't been colonised, but the outcome could hardly have been worse.
Africa has suffered more than any other continent from its colonial past, which has breed Ugandas and Congos and Rawandas and South Africas and Zimbabwes and greed and corruption and death.
An obituary for Amin published in 'The Sydney Morning Herald' on 18 August 2003 eloquently summarises the predicament. "Amin's tragedy, like that of so many Africans, was to have admired a civilisation whose external trappings he strongly desired, but of whose internal workings he had no idea, while at the same time he was partly enclosed in the mental world of a primitive tribalist," the obituary concludes.
"He was a product of multiculturalism, African-style, and able to use relatively advanced methods to achieve brutal, primitive ends. Like every African dictator, he was confusion's masterpiece."
More information
Links are to external sites.
Uganda - A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies Series)
Palestine Facts - Entebbe Rescue Operation, 1976
other killer files
Idi Amin
Ion Antonescu
Yasuhiko Asaka
Rifaat Assad
Théoneste Bagosora
Bhopal Industrial Incident
Nicolae Ceausescu
The Duvaliers
Francisco Franco
Joseph Goebbels
Hermann Göring
Heinrich Himmler
Adolf Hitler
Elie Hobeika
Enver Hoxha
Saddam Hussein
Shiro Ishii
Radovan Karadzic
Kim Il Sung
King Léopold II
Mao Tse-Tung
Ferdinand Marcos
Josef Mengele
Slobodan Milosevic
Ratko Mladic
Efraín Ríos Montt
Benito Mussolini
Ante Pavelic
Augusto Pinochet
Pol Pot
Anastasio Somoza
Joseph Stalin
Suharto
The Three Pashas
Rafael Trujillo
United States Presidents
Jorge Rafaél Videla
Ne Win
Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler
AKA 'Der Führer' (The Leader).
Country: Germany.
Kill tally: Directly responsible for the deaths of over 46 million Europeans as a result of the Second World War.
Background: Following the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles penalises the defeated Germany, annexing land, imposing large war reparations, limiting the size of the German Army and blaming Germany and Austria-Hungary for starting the conflict. The new German Government, a coalition of left-leaning and centrist parties, attempts to rebuild the country but faces opposition from the right and extreme left. The instability is exacerbated by the failure of the domestic and global economies.
Mini biography: Born on 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, Austria, into a lower middle-class family of peasant origins. His father, a customs official, is 23 years older than his mother, a domestic servant.
Hitler is dominated by his father and spoilt by his mother. His father dies in 1903, his mother in 1907. He has one half-brother, one half-sister, and one full-sister. In his youth, Hitler dreams of becoming an artist.
1903 - Following his father's death, Hitler leaves school.
1907 - He goes to Vienna, the capital of Austria, where he attempts to pursue his dream of becoming an artist. However, he has only limited talent and is unable to gain admission to the Academy of Fine Arts, failing the entrance examination twice. In 1908, following the death of his mother, he moves to Vienna to live.
"I owe much to the time in which I had learned to become hard (in Vienna)," Hitler later writes, "I praise it even more for having rescued me from the emptiness of an easy life, that it took the milksop out of his downy nest and gave him Dame Sorrow for a foster mother."
1913 - He moves to Munich, the capital of Bavaria, where he ekes out a living as a painter and technical draftsman.
1914 - When the First World War breaks out Hitler volunteers for service with the German Army, joining the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment. He serves with some distinction and is awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class, in December 1914, and the Iron Cross, First Class, in August 1918. However, he never rises beyond the rank of corporal. By the end of the war he has developed shell-shock and is admitted to military hospital.
After the war, Hitler returns to Munich and begins to become involved in politics. He believes that Jews and Marxists are responsible for Germany's defeat.
1919 - He joins the German Workers' Party in September. A gifted and inspiring public speaker, he is soon placed in charge of the party's propaganda.
1920 - Under Hitler's direction, the party adopts the swastika as its emblem and changes its name to the National Socialist (Nazi) Party. Its platform calls for the removal of civil rights for Jews and for their expulsion from Germany.
As the German economy begins to buckle under the weight of the enormous war reparations demanded by the Treaty of Versailles and debts incurred during the war, popular support for the Nazis begins to increase. Inflation and unemployment climb. The German Government loses its majority in the elections of 1920, introducing a decade long period of political instability. Nazi Party membership increases to about 3,000.
1921 - The Nazi Party's "storm troopers" are formally organised into a private army. Called the Sturmabteilung (SA) - the 'Brownshirts' - the army is used to protect party meetings and to attack opponents. Hitler becomes leader of the Nazi Party in July. Party faithful begin to refer to him as the Führer (Leader). Meanwhile, in April, the Allies present Germany with a bill of US$33 billion for war reparations.
1923 - When the German Government defaults on its reparation payments, the French Army occupies the Ruhr. Inflation skyrockets and is fuelled when the government begins printing more and more money in a desperate attempt to solve the crisis. The value of the Deutschmark plummets.
In mid-1920 US$1 is worth 40 marks. By July 1923 the exchange rate has blown out to 160,000 marks to US$1. By August 1923 the rate is 10 million marks to the dollar. By November 1923 the figure is 4.2 trillion marks to the dollar. Almost overnight, Germans have lost their life savings. Social unrest begins to escalate.
Hitler exploits the situation, advocating national pride, blaming the left and Jews for the political turmoil and claiming to have a solution to the economic crisis. Many Germans come to see the party as a credible alternative.
On 8 November Hitler and 600 armed members of the SA stage an abortive attempt to seize power in Munich. Hitler is arrested and tried for treason. The Nazi Party is outlawed.
Hitler's trial receives media coverage in and outside of Germany and his courtroom attacks against the government are widely quoted. He is found guilty and sentenced to five years jail, but is allowed to receive visitors when he likes and to employ Rudolph Hess as his private secretary. His imprisonment begins on 1 April 1924, however, he will only serve nine months of his term.
While in prison he begins to write 'Mein Kampf' (My Struggle), his political autobiography and treatise on the superiority of the "Aryan race" and the "menace" of the Jew. The book is published in 1927. When the Nazis come to power it will be set as school textbook and presented to all German newlyweds.
1924 - Hitler is released a few days before Christmas. He finds there is now a different economic and political climate in Germany. A new government has succeeded in containing the crisis and achieving stability. Hitler is forbidden from making public speeches across much of the country but works to further entrench his hold over the Nazi Party.
1927 - The Nazi Party holds its first Nuremberg congress, a mass political rally that will become the party's signature propaganda event.
1928 - Nazi Party membership now exceeds 100,000, though the grassroots support is not reflected in the polls, with the Nazis winning only 2.6% of the vote in a general election held in May. The party will become better known the following year when an alliance with the conservative German National People's Party lends it some respectability within the antirepublican right.
Hitler, meanwhile, writes a sequel to 'Mein Kampf'. However, the book is never published during his lifetime.
1929 - The German Government is crippled when the Wall Street stock market crash of October ushers in the Great Depression. Unemployment rises from 8.5% in 1929 to 29.9% in 1932.
Hitler again exploits the situation, spreading his propaganda nationally through newspapers, securing support from magnates of business and industry, and establishing a national party structure. He promises something for all - work for the unemployed, profits to industry and small businesses, and expansion of the army and restoration of German pride. Public support blossoms.
In 1928 the Nazis hold 12 seats in the Reichstag (parliament). By 1932 they will have 230 seats and be the largest party in the government. Joseph Goebbels begins to create the Führer myth around Hitler and to organise the ritualistic and highly choreographed party rallies that help convert the masses to Nazism and provide a platform for Hitler's accession to power in January 1933.
Meanwhile, Hitler meets Eva Braun during 1929. Braun will become Hitler's lover in 1931 after his previous mistress, Geli Raubal, who is also his niece, commits suicide to escape his attentions.
1933 - The Nazis reach a position from which they can seize power on 30 January when Hitler is appointed chancellor. Following the Reichstag fire on 27 February basic civil rights are suspended and the Nazis are given the right to quash political opposition.
Germany's last election until after the Second World War is held on 5 March. Though the Nazis win only 44% of the vote Hitler persuades the Reichstag to pass the Enabling Law, allowing him to govern independently for four years. The Nazis now take full control of the state apparatus.
All Nazis in prison are issued with full pardons; critics of the government and the Nazi Party are subject to arrest; special courts are established for the trial of political detainees. Regional governments are dissolved and then reconstituted with governors handpicked by Hitler. Leftist political parties are banned; Germany is declared a one-party state; Jews and leftists are purged from the bureaucracy; and trade unions are dissolved and replaced with Nazi organisations.
The Gestapo, or secret state police, is established in April. Concentration camps are set up for the interment of opponents. A program of public works, rearmament and forced labour helps bring the economy under control. Inflation comes down, the currency is stabilised and full employment achieved. Support for Hitler increases.
On 10 May Hitler stages the "burning of the books" in Berlin. Works by Jewish, Marxist and other "subversive" authors are publicly burned in huge bonfires. On 14 October Germany withdraws from the League of Nations.
Though rigorously oppressive, Hitler's regime is popular with average Germans, who benefit from tax relief and strategic social investments. Taxes on working people will never be raised during the Nazi reign. Soldiers and their families will receive more than double the income offered to their Western counterparts. The Nazis will commission large infrastructure projects, including the building of the autobahn road system running across Germany.
However, the expenditure is unsustainable. It will be financed by growing debt and the spoils of conquest.
1934 - Hitler organises the 'Night of the Long Knives' massacre of rebellious leaders of the SA on the night of 30 June. In August he becomes president and chancellor, giving him supreme command of the German armed forces. Hitler is now the Führer, the dictator of the fascist Third Reich, an empire where the individual belongs to the state.
1935 - On 16 March the Nazis introduce conscription. A new German Army (Wehrmacht) is being created. Hitler formally announced that Germany has begun to rearm and rebuild its army and air force, in contravention of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The 'Nuremberg Laws', meanwhile, strip Jews of the right to citizenship and restrict their relations with Gentiles.
1936 - Hitler joins with Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in the 'Rome-Berlin Axis' and signs the 'Anti-Comintern Pact' with Japan, an agreement to fight the spread of communism. Italy joins the pact in 1937.
At the same time, Hitler confirms his intention to take Germany into war, telling his cohorts that the country must be ready to fight by 1940.
The military soon get an opportunity for battle experience when Germany enters the Spanish Civil War in support of Spanish Nationalists led by Francisco Franco. The German contribution is vital at the very beginning of the war when German aircraft fly Franco's troops from Morocco to Spain. Germany's ongoing support will also be a critical factor behind Franco's eventual victory.
1938 - Support for Hitler is further buoyed by his policy of foreign expansion. Austria is annexed on 13 March. The Sudetenland, the German-speaking area in the north of Czechoslovakia, is ceded to Germany on 29 September under the terms of the 'Munich Agreement' between Britain, France, Germany and Italy.
At the end of the year the persecution of the Jews intensifies. Over the days of 9-10 November the Nazis orchestrate the Kristallnacht (Crystal Night) pogrom. Jewish shops, houses and synagogues across Germany are burnt by both the Schutz-Staffel (SS) - the 'Blackshirts', Hitler's personal guard - and the general population. Ninety-one Jews are killed. Thirty thousand are arrested and deported.
Hitler is named 'Time' magazine's person of the year. Commenting on the rise of the Nazi Party and Hitler, the magazine says, "The situation which gave rise to this demagogic, ignorant, desperate movement was inherent in the German republic's birth and in the craving of large sections of the politically immature German people for strong, masterful leadership ... Meanwhile, Germany has become a nation of uniforms, goose-stepping to Hitler's tune, where boys of ten are taught to throw hand grenades, where women are regarded as breeding machines."
1939 - On 30 January Hitler declares in the Reichstag that a new world war will lead to the destruction of the Jewish race in Europe. Bohemia and Moravia are occupied in March, while Slovakia is made a puppet state. In May, as Germany prepares for war, Hitler agrees to a formal military alliance with Italy, the 'Pact of Steel'.
On 22 August Hitler briefs his senior military commanders on his plans for the invasion of Poland.
According to one report of the meeting, Hitler says, "Our strength lies in our quickness and in our brutality.
"Genghis Khan has sent millions of women and children into death knowingly and with a light heart. History sees in him only the great founder of states. As to what the weak Western European civilisation asserts about me, that is of no account.
"I have given the command and I shall shoot everyone who utters one word of criticism, for the goal to be obtained in the war is not that of reaching certain lines but of physically demolishing the opponent.
"And so for the present only in the East I have put my death-head formations in place with the command relentlessly and without compassion to send into death many women and children of Polish origin and language.
"Only thus we can gain the living space that we need. Who after all is today speaking about the destruction of the Armenians?"
The next day, 23 August, he signs a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union, carving up Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence, with the Soviets claiming Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, part of the Balkans and half of Poland.
German troops invade Poland on 1 September. Britain and France declare war on Germany two days later. The Second World War has begun.
Poland is overrun within a month, with Germany taking the west of the country and the Soviets occupying the east. Denmark and Norway fall in April 1940. The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France are invaded the following month. By the middle of June 1940 France has surrendered.
As the invasion progresses Jews and other "undesirables" in the occupied territories are dispossessed and interned in work camps.
In Germany the physically handicapped, mentally ill, and others with so-called "worthless lives" are rounded up and sent to designated hospitals, where they are killed. Referred to by the Nazis as mercy killing and planned by Hitler's office and the Reich Interior Ministry, the "euthanasia" program will claim up to 275,000 lives when it goes into full swing.
1940 - Beginning from 10 July, the 'Battle of Britain' rages in the skies as the British Royal Air Force (RAF) desperately combats wave after wave of aerial attacks and bombing raids by the Luftwaffe while launching counteroffensive bombing missions into Germany.
Though outnumbered by four to one the RAF is able to inflict enough damage to the German forces to cause Hitler to suspend 'Operation Sealion', the proposed invasion of Britain by sea. By the end of September the 'Battle of Britain' is effectively over. Germany has suffered its first major defeat of the war.
Meanwhile, Germany, Italy and Japan sign the 'Tripartite Pact', an agreement to carve up the world following victory in the war.
At the end of the year, Hitler meets with Romanian leader Ion Antonescu. Under Antonescu's direction Romania will become one of Germany's staunchest allies. Hitler and Antonescu will meet again in January and May 1941.
Hitler meets Spanish fascist dictator Francisco Franco on 23 October at French-Spanish border to try to persuade Spain to enter the war, but Franco is reluctant to become directly involved and only provides token support.
1941 - On 6 June Hitler meets Croatian fascist leader Ante Pavelic to discuss a plan to expel much of the Serbian population of the so-called 'Independent State of Croatia' and replace them with Croats and Slovenes from lands annexed by the Germans. Pavelic's regime will be responsible for the genocide of 600,000 to one million within its area of control, including 30,000 Jews, 29,000 Gipsies, and 600,000 Serbs. Hitler will meet with Pavelic again in November 1942.
Germany invades the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. The Germans advance swiftly but are halted on 6 December by a Russian counterattack just short of Moscow.
The 'Battle for Moscow' will be the biggest of the Second World War, involving seven million participants and an area of operations the size of France. The Germans' failure to capture the city will be their first military defeat of the war.
The United States enters the war when the Japanese air force bombs the US naval base at Pearl Harbour in Hawaii on 7 December. Hitler declares war on the US on 11 December. With the offensive in the Soviet Union stalled, he appoints himself commander-in-chief.
"St Petersburg must disappear utterly from the Earth's surface. Moscow too. Then the Russians will retire into Siberia," Hitler declares.
"As for the ridiculous 100 million Slavs, we will mould the best of them to the shape that suits us, and we will isolate the rest of them in their own pig-styes; and anyone who talks about cherishing the local inhabitant and civilising him goes straight off into a concentration camp," he says.
On 18 December Hitler orders his troops in Russia to stand fast at their present positions.
1942 - On 20 January the Nazis complete the planning for the Endlosung (Final Solution), the extermination of the Jews, Gipsies, Slavs, homosexuals, communists, and other "undesirables" and "decadents" in death camps run by the SS and controlled by the Gestapo. About six million European Jews die in the following 'Holocaust'. Most (about 4.5 million) of those killed come from Poland and the Soviet Union. About 125,000 are German Jews.
The Holocaust also claims about 500,000 Gipsies, between 10,000 and 25,000 homosexuals, 2,000 Jehovah's Witnesses, up to 3.5 million non-Jewish Poles, between 3.5 million and six million other Slavic civilians, as many as four million Soviet prisoners of war, and up to 1.5 million political dissidents.
1943 - The war turns against Germany in the winter of 1942-43 when the Sixth Army is defeated at Stalingrad (now Volgograd). Though the German forces are encircled and trapped by a Soviet counteroffensive, Hitler refuses to allow them to attempt an escape. They surrender on 2 February 1943.
The German Sixth Army has been effectively destroyed in what is at the time the most catastrophic military defeat in German history. Over 500,000 of the German-led troops are dead. By the end of 1943, the Soviets have broken through the German siege of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) and recaptured much of the Ukrainian Republic.
Hitler orders his retreating forces to adopt a scorched-earth policy and destroy everything that may be of use to the advancing Soviets.
The German offensive in North Africa is stopped at the beginning of November 1942 when Allied troops led by General Bernard Law Montgomery force the German Afrika Korps led by General Erwin Rommel into a retreat. By 13 May 1943 275,000 Germans and Italians have surrendered. The war in North Africa is over, leaving the Allies free to land in Sicily and Italy.
To the west, the US and British navies gain control of the Atlantic shipping lanes, clearing the way for the 'D-Day' landings on the Normandy beaches in France on 6 June 1944 and the invasion of Germany six months later. Soviet troops, meanwhile, advance from the east.
In the skies over Germany the Allied air forces intensify their bombing raids. The strategy of indiscriminate area bombing will kill an estimated 600,000 civilians, including about 75,000 children.
The Nazis call for "total war" against the Allies.
At the end of 1943 Hitler's personality comes under scrutiny in a profile written by Dr Henry Murray of the Harvard Psychological Clinic and commissioned by the US Office of Strategic Services, a precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Titled 'Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler - With Predictions of His Future Behaviour and Suggestions for Dealing with Him Now and After Germany's Surrender', the profile states:
"There is little disagreement among professional, or even among amateur, psychologists that Hitler's personality is an example of the counteractive type, a type that is marked by intense and stubborn efforts (i) to overcome early disabilities, weaknesses and humiliations (wounds to self-esteem), and sometimes also by efforts (ii) to revenge injuries and insults to pride."
Hitler is "possessed by what amounts to a homicidal compulsion which has no vent in a 'weak piping time of peace' (unless he becomes an outright criminal), and therefore he has constantly pushed events toward war, or scapegoating," the analysis says.
"As a result of the fact that resentment is the mainspring of Hitler's career, it is forever impossible to hope for any mercy or humane treatment from him. His revengefulness can be satisfied only by the extermination of his countless enemies. ...
"He is a hive of secret neurotic compunctions and feminine sentimentalities which have had to be stubbornly repressed ever since he embarked on his career of ruthless dominance and revenge (instigated by real or supposed insults). ...
"Hitler wants nothing so much as to arrive at the state where he can commit crimes without guilt feelings; but despite his boasts of having transcended Good and Evil this had not been possible. The suicidal trend in his personality is eloquent testimony of a repressed self-condemning tendency. ...
"As soon as the time comes when repeated offensive actions end in failure, Hitler will lose faith in himself and in his destiny, and become the helpless victim of his repressed conscience, with suicide or mental breakdown as the most likely outcome."
The analysis predicts that if Hitler does choose suicide "he will do it at the last moment and in the most dramatic possible manner."
Link to a copy of the analysis at the Cornell Law Library Archives.
1944 - Following an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Hitler on 20 July by a group of conspirators led by Wehrmacht Colonel Count Claus Von Stauffenberg and including one field marshal and 22 generals, Nazi political officers are appointed to all military headquarters. Several thousand people will be killed in reprisal for the attempt on Hitler's life.
Though Hitler is not mortally injured by the bomb used in the assassination bid he is lightly paralysed on his left side and develops a serious tremor in his left arm. He is also psychologically affected, becoming more paranoid and suspicious.
1945 - On 30 January advanced Soviet troops reach the Oder River, less than 70 km away from the centre of Berlin. The same day, Hitler makes his last radio broadcast to the German people. Six weeks later, on 13 March, he makes his last journey outside Berlin, travelling to the east to inspect the Oder front.
By March, as the Western forces reach the Rhine River, Soviet armies have overrun most of Eastern Europe and are converging on Berlin, where Hitler waits in his bunker. The Soviets march under the slogan, "There will be no pity. They have sown the wind and now they are harvesting the whirlwind."
Few are spared. As the Soviets move through Germany they rape at least two million German women in an undisciplined advance that is now acknowledged as the largest case of mass rape in history.
By 25 April the Soviet forces have encircled Berlin. The city now becomes the "Reichssheiterhaufen" - the "Reich's funeral pyre".
A street by street battle to capture Berlin begins. The infantry attack is accompanied by an unrelenting artillery barrage, with 1.8 million shells being fired on the city between 21 April and 2 May. Tanks are also sent in, although at first the losses are extremely high, with over 800 tanks being destroyed.
The three and a half million civilians that remain in the city are caught in crossfire. Nearly 110,000 German soldiers and civilians die during the battle. A further 134,000 are taken prisoner. About 130,000 women are raped.
On 28 April Hitler marries his mistress, Eva Braun. On the afternoon of 30 April he shoots himself in the head. Braun also suicides, taking poison. In accordance with his instructions, Hitler's body is burned. Braun's body is burned next to his.
"You must never allow my corpse to fall into the hands of the Russians," Hitler tells his valet prior to his suicide. "They would make a spectacle in Moscow out of my body and put it in waxworks."
In his final will and testament, written just before his suicide, he calls on the German Government and people "to uphold the race laws to the limit and to resist mercilessly the poisoner of all nations, international Jewry".
Berlin falls to the Soviet forces on 2 May. The assault on the city has cost the Red Army 78,291 killed and 274,184 wounded.
On 7 May Germany surrenders unconditionally. The Second World War officially ends on 2 September when Japan formally signs documents of unconditional surrender.
Hitler's charred body is discovered by the Soviet forces occupying Berlin shortly after the city falls. It is smuggled back to the Soviet Union, where its upper and lower jaws and the cranium are said to still exist in official archives. The rest of the body is hidden under a parade ground at Magdeburg, in what is to become Eastern Germany. In 1970 these remains are secretly dug up, cremated and flushed down a sewer.
Postscript
Over 46 million Europeans have died as a result of the war, including:
Over 26 million Soviets,
Over seven million Germans,
About 6.8 million Poles,
Between one million and 1.7 million Yugoslavs,
985,000 Romanians,
810,000 French,
750,000 Hungarians,
525,000 Austrians,
520,000 Greeks,
410,000 Italians,
400,000 Czechs,
388,000 British,
250,000 Dutch,
88,000 Belgians,
84,000 Fins,
22,000 Spaniards,
21,000 Bulgarians,
10,000 Norwegians, and
4,000 Danes.
The war has also claimed over 13 million people from other lands, including:
About 11.3 million Chinese,
Almost two million Japanese,
298,000 Americans,
118,000 Filipinos,
42,000 Canadians,
36,000 Indians,
29,000 Australians,
12,000 New Zealanders, and
9,000 South Africans.
Beginning in November 1945, 22 surviving Nazi leaders considered responsible for the crimes committed by Germany during the war are tried before an international military tribunal sitting in Nuremberg. Among those brought before the tribunal are Hermann Göring, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Rudolf Hess, and Albert Speer. Twelve of the accused are sentenced to death, seven receive prison sentences, and three are acquitted.
Following the high-profile Nuremberg trials, lower-ranking Nazi war criminals are also brought to justice.
2005 - On 10 May a national memorial to the Holocaust is opened in Berlin. The 'Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe' is located near the Brandenburg Gate in the centre of the city. It includes a museum with exhibits on the Nazi's campaign to wipe out European Jews.
Comment: Adolf Hitler, the undisputed, all-time, world champion of killers. Directly responsible for the deaths of over 46 million Europeans and the destruction of much of Europe. But he never would have got there without the support of the people. After the abortive attempt to take power by force in 1923 and his subsequent arrest, trial and imprisonment, Hitler realised that the way to top was through the democratic process. But soon after he was elected democracy was violated so he could secure his grip. I guess you had to be there to understand his appeal. The gloss is all gone today, although there are still plenty out there who think he was just "misunderstood". Personally I think if it looks like evil, sounds like evil and behaves like evil, it's evil.
More information
Links are to external sites.
Germany - A Country Study (Library of Congress Country Studies Series)
Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler by Henry A. Murray (The Cornell Law Library Archives)
The Nizkor Project - Adolf Hitler
Time Person of the Year 1938: Adolf Hitler
BBC - History - Genocide Under the Nazis
Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State PBS
Eurodocs: Germany: National Socialism and World War II
Guardian Unlimited Special Reports Second World War: Archived Articles
Guardian Unlimited Special Reports Focus: The Holocaust
Holocaust Educational Resource (The Nizkor Project)
The Holocaust History Project
Nazi and East German Propaganda Guide
Simon Wiesenthal Centre - Online Multimedia Learning Centre
other killer files
Idi Amin
Ion Antonescu
Yasuhiko Asaka
Rifaat Assad
Théoneste Bagosora
Bhopal Industrial Incident
Nicolae Ceausescu
The Duvaliers
Francisco Franco
Joseph Goebbels
Hermann Göring
Heinrich Himmler
Adolf Hitler
Elie Hobeika
Enver Hoxha
Saddam Hussein
Shiro Ishii
Radovan Karadzic
Kim Il Sung
King Léopold II
Mao Tse-Tung
Ferdinand Marcos
Josef Mengele
Slobodan Milosevic
Ratko Mladic
Efraín Ríos Montt
Benito Mussolini
Ante Pavelic
Augusto Pinochet
Pol Pot
Anastasio Somoza
Joseph Stalin
Suharto
The Three Pashas
Rafael Trujillo
United States Presidents
Jorge Rafaél Videla
Ne Win
Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan