Paul von Hindenburg was a respected military war hero who served as President of the Weimar Republic from 1925 to 1934 – a presidency that coincided with a turbulent period in German history.

Although he was hailed as a symbol of stability, and disapproved of Hitler and his politics, Hindenburg’s decisions and actions as president facilitated Hitler’s rise to power as Chancellor, ultimately leading to the erosion of democracy and the Nazis’ takeover of power.

What role did Hindenburg play in Germany’s post-World War One environment and why did someone who disliked Hitler help him rise to power?

Military career and heroic reputation

Paul von Hindenburg was born on 2 October 1847, in Posen, Prussia (now Poznań, Poland) into an aristocratic family. He embarked on a military career at a young age, serving in the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), earning a reputation as a skilled commander.

Having retired in 1911, Hindenburg was recalled in 1914 to bolster Germany’s efforts on the Eastern Front in World War One, as Commander of the Eighth Army and the superior to talented military strategist, General Erich Ludendorff. Their partnership was highly successful, and Hindenburg oversaw a significant series of victories, particularly the Battle of Tannenberg (1914), that established him as a national hero.

Reproduction of a 1914 photograph of Paul von Hindenburg

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Original photo: Nicola Perscheid (1864–1930); Restoration: Adam Cuerden / Public Domain

By 1916, his popularity led to his appointment as Field Marshall and Commander of the Imperial German Army. Together with Ludendorff, he established a de-facto military dictatorship, sidelining Kaiser Wilhelm II. Following Germany’s defeat, Hindenburg retired again in 1919.

Hindenburg and the ‘stab-in-the-back’ myth

After the Armistice, the Treaty of Versailles, signed on 28 June 1919, marked World War One’s formal conclusion. It consisted of 440 articles setting-out the terms for Germany’s punishment, including 132 billion gold marks in reparations (£6.6 billion today), crippling Germany’s economy.

The Treaty angered millions of Germans, and military leaders shifted blame for Germany’s defeat onto the politicians who agreed the Treaty. Hindenburg appeared before a parliamentary commission investigating responsibility for the war’s outbreak and defeat, during which he read-out a prepared statement falsely testifying that the German Army had been close to victory. He pointed to the Dolchstoß (“stab in the back”) myth, blaming liberal betrayals and disloyal elements on the home-front, and unpatriotic politicians (the ‘November Criminals’) for the surrender.

This Dolchstoßlegende narrative gained traction, undermining the Weimar Republic’s legitimacy, fuelling nationalist sentiment and paving the way for the rise of extremist ideologies.

President of the Weimar Republic

The Weimar Republic faced serious challenges including economic depression, domestic turmoil, and political unrest. On 8 November 1923, Hitler had launched the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich – an attempted coup against the Weimar government. The coup was suppressed, and Hindenburg issued a statement urging national unity.

Early Nazis who participated in the attempt to seize power during the 1923 Putsch

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons / German Federal Archive (Deutsches Bundesarchiv) / CC BY-SA 3.0

By 1924, the Dawes Plan bolstered Germany’s economy, resulting in reductions to reparation payments, hyperinflation subsiding, and political divisions easing. Hindenburg was convinced to run for president to unify Germany, eventually becoming the second elected President of the Weimar Republic (with exiled Wilhelm II’s approval), taking office on 12 May 1925.

Despite limited political experience, Hindenburg’s military background and revered status made him a popular choice. Throughout his presidency, Hindenburg’s image was used as a symbol of the Weimar Republic, with his stern and distinguished appearance representing stability and respectability, providing a sense of continuity which helped maintain Germany’s fragile democratic institutions.

His presidency was marked by a delicate balance between democratic governance and the persistent threat of authoritarianism, fostering reconciliation between republicans, and moderate monarchists and the right-wing. Between 1925-1928, Germany saw relative prosperity, with increased wages and a boom in industry.

Economic depression

However, following the Wall Street Crash and subsequent Great Depression, Germany once more faced economic turmoil and rising unemployment. Hindenburg struggled to form stable cabinets, often ruling by decree, seeking political stability. This contributed to Hitler’s rise to power.

By 1930, as economic depression took hold and another government fell, Hindenburg ensured his cabinet was accountable only to him. Hindenburg authorised Chancellor Brüning to dissolve the Reichstag in July, leading to elections in which the Nazi Party became the second-largest party. With parliamentary cooperation weakening, Brüning also governed almost exclusively through decrees. However, his deflationary policies exacerbated economic difficulties, fuelling unrest which the Nazis capitalised on.

Major portions of society still pined for the imperial era, and Germany’s lingering resentment from World War One, coupled with rising unemployment, drew people towards extremist parties like the Nazis, who promised simple solutions.

The 1932 Presidential Election

Hindenburg was persuaded to run for re-election, garnering support from the Centre Party, Deutsche Volkspartei (DVP) and Social Democratic Party (SPD), who saw him as the best chance to defeat Hitler. Yet while Hindenburg made a single radio address emphasising unity, Hitler campaigned vigorously throughout Germany.

Hindenburg, aged 84, at a radio microphone in 1932 during the election campaign in which he defeated Hitler

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-13227 / CC-BY-SA 3.0

During the election, Hindenburg refused to allow Hitler’s Sturmabteilung paramilitary group onto the streets, intimidated by their thuggish behaviour. Whilst Hitler wanted the Sturmabteilung to create chaos (which he could then be seen to ‘control’), he also wanted to portray himself as law-abiding, so accepted Hindenburg’s request. 

Hindenburg was re-elected president in 1932. 

Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor

Despite Hindenburg’s dislike of Hitler, the Nazi Party had emerged as the largest in the Reichstag following two successive elections (in July and November 1932) yet could not form a majority government. Hitler demanded to be appointed Chancellor in any government his party participated in.

Initially Hindenburg refused, however Hitler soon obtained his confidence, promising the restoration of monarchy once Germany regained full sovereignty. In November an agreement was reached between Hitler and von Papen – former Chancellor – to form a government, with Hitler as Chancellor but with non-Nazis in most other posts. Thus in January 1933, under pressure from advisors believing it would lead to political stability, Hindenburg reluctantly appointed Hitler as Chancellor, granting the Nazi’s two cabinet seats.

Hitler secured significant power and quickly manipulated the political landscape, yet maintained a respectful public demeanour towards Hindenburg – renaming a city after him, and building a monumental tower in East Prussia honouring Hindenburg’s military achievements.

Enabling Act of 1933

Conscious of his lack of majority, Hitler’s first act as Chancellor was to request Hindenburg dissolve the Reichstag. As his campaign was closing, the Reichstag burnt down on 27 February 1933. The Nazis blamed young Dutch communist, Van der Lubbe, who was arrested, then used the incident to turn public opinion against the communists. 

Exploiting the situation, Hitler persuaded Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree, granting Hitler emergency powers. These temporarily suspended civil liberties, but gave the Nazis a legal way to oppress opponents, framed as traitors.

In March, Hitler proposed the Enabling Law which would grant him emergency dictatorial authority – effectively giving power to rule by decree, rather than passing laws through the Reichstag and the president. Within an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, the law passed, and Hindenburg signed the Enabling Act on 23 March 1933 – effectively ending the Weimar Republic.

The Enabling Act curtailed civil liberties, suppressed opposition parties, and solidified Hitler’s path towards establishing a totalitarian state.

Hitler pictured with German President Paul von Hindenburg in March 1933

Image Credit: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-S38324 / CC-BY-SA 3.0

Within 1 month, Hitler consolidated dictatorial powers, effectively extinguishing the democratic foundations of the newly formed German republic. Furthermore, just a year later, in 1934, he merged the positions of President and Chancellor, creating a new title for himself known as the “Fuhrer”, a German word for “the leader”.

The ascent of Hitler and the erosion of democracy in Germany was a perplexing development for a nation that had, until then, experienced a relatively stable period of 14 years under a democratic system. What were the factors that contributed to this sudden transformation?

German woes

Historians have debated over this question for decades, but certain key factors are unavoidable. The first was economic struggle. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 had devastated the German economy, which had just started to boom following the years of chaos after World War One. As a result, the early 1930s had been a time of immense hardship for Germany’s large population, which had known little else since 1918.

Before World War One, under the autocratic Imperial rule of Kaiser Wilhelm, Germany had been on the path towards becoming a true world power, and had lead the way militarily as well as in the sciences and industry. Now it was a shadow of its former self, humiliated disarmed and crippled by the harsh terms that had followed their defeat in the Great War.

The consequences of its defeat had left the country economically devastated and burdened with the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles. These conditions, coupled with political instability, social unrest, and economic hardships, created a fertile ground for extremist ideologies to take hold.

Politics of anger

Consequently, a significant number of Germans came to associate authoritarian governance with prosperity, while perceiving democracy as synonymous with hardship. Following the humbling Treaty of Versailles, the abdication of the Kaiser further feed public discontent, leading to the middle-class politicians who had signed the treaty bearing the brunt of the German people’s anger.

Hitler exploited these circumstances, capitalising on widespread disillusionment and resentment among the population. Through propaganda, charismatic rhetoric, and manipulation of political institutions, he managed to consolidate power and dismantle democratic safeguards. The Nazi Party, under Hitler’s leadership, targeted specific groups, scapegoating them for Germany’s problems, particularly Jews, political dissidents, and minority communities.

His popularity grew rapidly after the Wall Street Crash, and his Nazi Party had gone from nowhere to the biggest German party in the Reichstag elections of 1932.

Hitler in conversation with Ernst Hanfstaengl and Hermann Göring, 21 June 1932. Image credit: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Image Credit: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Defeat of democracy

As a result, President Hindenburg, a popular but now aged hero of World War One, had little choice but to appoint Hitler Chancellor in January 1933, after all his other attempts to form a government had collapsed.

Hindenburg despised Hitler, who had never gained a rank higher than Corporal during the war, and apparently refused to look at him as he signed him in as Chancellor.

When Hitler then appeared on the Reichstag balcony, he was greeted with a storm of Nazi salutes and cheering, in a ceremony carefully organised by his propaganda specialist Joseph Goebbels.

Nothing like this had ever been seen in German politics before, even under the Kaiser, and many liberal Germans were already greatly concerned. Shortly afterwards, General Ludendorff, another World War One veteran who had once been in league with Hitler, sent a telegram to his old comrade Hindenburg.

It read “By appointing Hitler Chancellor of the Reich you have handed over our sacred German Fatherland to one of the greatest demagogues of all time. I prophesy to you this evil man will plunge our Reich into the abyss and will inflict immeasurable woe on our nation. Future generations will curse you in your grave for this action.”

Hitler’s ascension to power in Germany in 1933 marked a critical turning point for Europe. The collapse of democracy alongside the combination of economic hardships, political instability, Hitler’s charisma and manipulative propaganda, allowed him to seize power and reshape the course of German and world history.

Investigators have long speculated about the cause of the fire, though a definitive answer has eluded them. But what are some of the possible explanations for why it happened?

Almost exactly a year before its famous demise, the Hindenburg made its first flight from Germany to the US. Indeed, the German dirigible’s fateful final journey was noteworthy for being the inaugural flight of its sophomore season. As such, it was the subject of considerable media attention, meaning plenty of news cameras were trained on the Hindenburg when it burst into flames and crashed to the ground. Spectacular images of the incident swiftly appeared on the front pages on newspapers around the world.

Sabotage!

Perhaps encouraged by excitable media coverage of the disaster, it didn’t take long for sabotage theories to emerge. In the search for likely saboteurs, several key Hindenburg crew members picked out a prime candidate, a German passenger called Joseph Späh who had survived the crash thanks to his training as a vaudeville acrobat.

Having smashed a window with his film camera, Späh lowered himself out the window as the ground approached and hung onto the window ledge, letting go when the ship was 20 feet from the ground and applying his acrobatic instincts to execute a safety roll upon landing.

Späh aroused retrospective suspicion due to repeated trips into the ship’s interior to feed his dog. Crew members also recalled him making anti-Nazi jokes during the flight. Ultimately, an FBI investigation found no evidence of Späh having any connection to a sabotage plot.

Hindenburg over New York on 6 May 1937.

Image Credit: Public Domain

Another sabotage hypothesis focused on a rigger, Erich Spehl, who died in the fire. A theory advanced by A. A. Hoehling in his 1962 book Who Destroyed the Hindenburg? centres on Spehl as the likely saboteur for a number of reasons, including reports that his girlfriend was a communist with anti-Nazi connections.

The fact that the fire originated in an area of the ship that was off limits to most crew members except for riggers like Spehl and rumours of a 1938 Gestapo investigation into Spehl’s involvement also figured in Hoehling’s hypothesis. More recent analysis of Hoehling’s theory has generally found evidence of Spehl’s involvement to be weak.

An accident waiting to happen?

Although sabotage can never be entirely ruled out, most experts now believe that the Hindenburg air disaster was most likely caused by a sequence of issues that were perfectly capable of bringing down an airship without skulduggery. The inherent risks of airship travel are obvious, as the airship historian Dan Grossmann has noted: “They are big, unwieldy and difficult to manage. They are very affected by the wind, and because they need to be light, they are also quite fragile. On top of that, most airships were inflated with hydrogen, which is a very dangerous and highly flammable substance.”

The Hindenburg disaster was such a public spectacle that it shattered confidence in airship travel in an instant, but in truth, with the emergence of safer, faster and more efficient airplanes, it was already on the way out.

According to both investigations at the time and more recent analysis, the most likely cause of the Hindenburg’s fiery demise was an electrostatic discharge (a spark) igniting leaked hydrogen.

Fire bursts from the nose of the Hindenburg in this photograph by Murray Becker for the Associated Press.

Image Credit: Public Domain

A number of factors are thought to have conspired to trigger the blaze. Of course, the theory hinges on the presence of a hydrogen leak, which has never been proven, but investigators point to the difficulty the crew had in bringing the airship in trim prior to the landing as evidence of a potential hydrogen leak at the Hindenburg’s stern.

Rainy weather is thought to have played a part in the generation of an electrostatic spark, as did damp landing rope, which would have effectively ‘earthed’ the airship’s frame, but not its skin (the Hinderburg’s skin and frame were separated). This sudden potential difference between the ship’s skin and frame could have set off an electric spark, igniting the leaking hydrogen gas and rapidly engulfing the airship in flames.

Whilst initially motivated by profit, Schindler learned to see through Nazi ideology and recognised the misery the Jews were being subjected to. Using his position, Schindler’s initiative, courage and dedication to saving the lives of his Jewish employees made him a hero. The combined relatives of the Jewish survivors he saved has been cited at 7,000 descendants, but could be closer to 8,000 or 9,000 across America, Europe and Israel.

Here we explore more about Oskar Schindler’s life.

Early life

Oskar Schindler was born on 28 April 1908 in Svitavy (Zwittau) in Austria-Hungary. After graduating from technical school, he took further courses at several trade schools before working for his father’s agricultural equipment company.

Schindler married Emilie Pelzl in 1928, and following a series of jobs, joined the Czechoslovak army for 18 months. After this he had a period of unemployment before working for a bank for several years.

Emilie Schindler in 2000

Image Credit: Dr. José Rosenberg, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons

A spy for the Abwehr

Despite little previous interest in politics, the tensions of the 1930s and the impact of the Depression in Czechoslovakia meant Schindler increasingly identified as a Sudeten German. He joined the separatist Sudeten German Party, and in 1936 started working as a paid informant for the Abwehr – Nazi Germany’s military intelligence service. His tasks included giving low-level information on Czech troop movements, military installations and railways, and recruiting other Czech spies ahead of Nazi Germany’s planned invasion.

Schindler was arrested by the Czech government for espionage in July 1938 but released in October as a political prisoner under the terms of the Munich Agreement. A month later, he applied for membership of the Nazi Party and was accepted in 1939. That same year he was promoted to second in command of his Abwehr unit and moved to Kraków following Germany’s invasion and subsequent occupation of Poland.

Although there is debate about the extent of Schindler’s involvement, the Gestapo considered Schindler to be merely a ‘confidante’ of the Abwehr rather than an agent. Whatever his precise role, Schindler benefitted hugely from his Abwehr connections and found a wealth of opportunities in German-occupied Poland, continuing to work for the Abwehr until Autumn 1940 while enjoying a lavish lifestyle and pursuing extramarital affairs.

The Emalia factory

German policy in occupied Poland at the start of the war included the forced confiscation of Jewish-owned businesses, which were often placed under German control. This process suited Schindler who was looking for the chance to resume his former business career, and he started to acquire various different businesses.

New German regulations also meant businesses could employ Jews for a fraction of the cost of non-Jews. In November 1939, Schindler was introduced to Itzhak Stern, an accountant for a fellow Abwehr agent who had taken over Stern’s formerly Jewish-owned workplace. They discussed a Jewish-owned enamelware manufacturing company – Rekord Ltd – that Schindler was thinking of acquiring.

Stern advised that rather than running the company as a trusteeship, Schindler should buy or lease the business to give him more freedom from Nazi dictates – including the freedom to hire more Jews. At the time (and with the horrors of the Holocaust yet to fully begin), for Schindler, this cost effective benefit to his business as well as its money-making potential outweighed any concerns for the Jewish population.

Schindler formalised a lease agreement on the factory on 15 January 1940, renaming it Deutsche Emailwarenfabrik Oskar Schindler (German Enamelware Factory) – nicknamed ‘Emalia’. Using his connections, Schindler was able to obtain contracts to produce enamel items for the German army.

Oskar Schindler Enamel Factory in Krakow, 2021

Image Credit: Plam Petrov / Shutterstock.com

The Kraków ghetto

In August 1940, a decree required all Kraków Jews to leave the city within a fortnight. Only those with jobs directly related to the German war effort could stay. The fact his factory was seen as essential to the German war effort enabled Schindler to protect his Jewish workers more than other businesses, yet increasingly, Schindler had to give Nazi officials ever larger bribes and black market luxury items to keep his workers (‘Schindlerjuden’ – ‘Schindler Jews’) safe.

The Kraków ghetto was established in October 1941, when all 15,000 remaining Jews in Kraków were ordered to relocate to the run-down suburb of Podgórze (previously inhabited by 3,000 people) and sealed in. Any Jews found beyond the walls without official permission – and anyone caught assisting them – were sentenced to death

Conditions in the ghetto were cramped and unsanitary and most Jews were forced to work for German businesses, both within and beyond the ghetto walls, including Schindler’s enamel factory.

Liquidation of the Kraków ghetto

From May 1942, the Nazi’s began shifting their policy away from exploiting Jews to plans to exterminate them, implementing systematic deportations from the ghetto to surrounding concentration camps.

By February 1943, Schindler’s primary useful relationship was with the SS Untersturmführer Amon Göth, the commandant of a new labour camp at Płaszów, just south of the Kraków ghetto. Göth had a reputation as a sadist who shot inmates of the camp at random, yet Schindler forged a functioning relationship with Göth to protect his Jewish employees.

Göth had been tasked with overseeing the ‘liquidation’ of the Kraków ghetto. On 13-14 March 1943, the Nazis sent around 2,000 Jews who were able to work to Płaszów labour camp – those considered unfit for work (around 2-3,000 Jews) were murdered in the ghetto’s streets or deported to Auschwitz.

A column of captive Jews march with bundles down the main thoroughfare in Krakow during the liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto

Image Credit: Unknown author, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

What changed Schindler’s mind?

Aware that ordinary people were being deported to their deaths, Schindler became willing to compromise himself to help his Jewish employees. Following the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto, Schindler convinced Nazi personnel that he needed Jewish labour for his factory, sometimes paying huge sums of his own money to the Nazis as bribes to allow this.

In 1943, the SS re-developed Płaszów into a new concentration camp. Initially Göth’s plan was that all the factories, including Schindler’s, should be moved inside the camp gates. However, Schindler used his status, bribery and charm to convince Göth to allow him to build a sub-camp at his enamel factory to house his workers, plus 450 Jews from other nearby factories.

Schindler’s attempt at helping his Jewish workers led to numerous investigations by the SS, resulting in three separate arrests. However, the German authorities were never able to provide sufficient grounds to charge him, and using his charm and bribery, Schindler walked free each time.

Schindler’s list

In 1944, the Nazis relocated the Jews who worked in the Emalia factory to the Płaszów camp. As the Red Army drew near, the SS ordered the camp to start to be wound up, and began evacuating prisoners westward to Auschwitz and Gross-Rosen concentration camps.

To care for his employees, Schindler relocated to Moravia in Czechoslovakia, and in October 1944 was granted permission to relocate his enamel-works to Brünnlitz camp, this time as an armaments factory for the war effort. Schindler drew up a list (the inspiration for the film Schindler’s List) containing the names of 1,200 Jewish workers employed at his factory that needed to be transferred to his new business, and was authorised to take them with him – saving them from transfers to the concentration camps.

Photo of people save by Oskar Schindler

Image Credit: meunierd / Shutterstock.com

The new factory produced few if any useful artillery shells, and when officials questioned its low output, Schindler bought finished goods on the black market and resold them as his own. Rations provided by the SS were insufficient, so Schindler spent much of his time in Kraków obtaining food for his workers. His wife Emilie remained in Brünnlitz, surreptitiously obtaining additional rations and caring for the workers’ health.

When the Red Army liberated the camp in spring 1945, Schindler left his factory and relocated to Germany with Emilie.

After the war

As a member of the Nazi Party and the Abwehr, Schindler risked being arrested as a war criminal, so several of his Jewish workers prepared a statement that he could present attesting to his role in saving Jewish lives. He was also given a ring, made using gold from dental-work taken out of the mouth of Schindlerjude Simon Jeret. The ring was inscribed ‘Whoever saves one life saves the world entire’.

By this point, Schindler had spent his entire fortune on bribes and black market purchases of supplies for his workers. Virtually destitute, he was reduced to receiving assistance from Jewish organisations.

Itzhak Stern (left) had not seen Oskar Schindler for four years when he met him again in Herbert Steinhouse’s Paris office. Both men were still trying to get out of Europe

Image Credit: Alexander Taylor, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Herbert Steinhouse, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In 1949 the Schindlers emigrated to Argentina. After their separation in 1957, Oskar returned to Germany, where a series of unsuccessful business ventures led to his bankruptcy in 1963. Not long after he suffered a heart attack. 

Schindler ultimately died of liver failure on 9 October 1974 aged 66. He was buried according to his wish in the Catholic cemetery on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. Although he died relatively unknown, his grave now has stones placed on it from visitors of the Jewish faith in a sign of respect.

Legacy

Schindler had remained in contact with many of the Jews he had met during the war, attending celebrations and dividing his time between Germany and Israel. He was lauded as a hero and received many awards including an honour on the ‘Avenue of the Righteous’ and the German Order of Merit in 1966. Yet it was only in 1993 that his part in the war was more widely recognised, when the Schindlers were awarded a ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ title.

Oskar Schindler had looked an improbable candidate to become a wartime saviour, yet his remarkable life touched many other lives – not only the 1,200 Jews he saved from almost certain extermination but also their thousands of descendants.

Her life was thought to have been the inspiration for the Oscar-winning film Julia, and her financial generosity benefitted many, including securing the existence of the Freud Museum in London: a testimony to her respect and admiration for Freud’s work.

Born into privilege

Muriel Morris was born in 1901 in Chicago: her parents were wealthy industrialists and she wanted for nothing growing up. Despite, or perhaps because of, her privilege, the young Muriel became interested in radical causes. She enrolled at Wellesley College in 1918 and used some of her allowance to send funds to friends in post-war Europe.

In 1922 she left for Europe, visiting Italy (which was on the cusp of fascism at this point) and spending 2 years studying at the University of Oxford. In 1926 she arrived in Vienna: fascinated by Sigmund Freud’s pioneering development of psychoanalysis, she hoped to be analysed by the man himself.

Muriel Gardiner in the 1920s.

Image Credit: Connie Harvey / courtesy of the Freud Museum London.

The Vienna years

When Muriel arrived in Vienna, the country was run by the Socialist Democratic Party: Austria was undergoing major change, including the introduction of new housing projects, schools and labour laws, all of which promised better working conditions and life for the working classes.

Psychoanalysis was a new and somewhat avant-garde discipline at this point, and Muriel was keen to understand this new science further. Despite her pleas, Sigmund Freud declined to analyse Muriel himself, instead referring her to one of his colleagues, Ruth Mack Brunswick. The two women shared a keen interest in psychoanalysis and politics, and Muriel decided she wanted to pursue further study.

Following her marriage to Julian Gardiner and the birth of their daughter Connie, in 1932, Muriel enrolled to study medicine at the University of Vienna. As the 1930s progressed, the political climate of Vienna changed sharply. Fascist support was growing, and with it anti-Semitism. Muriel witnessed much of this first-hand and was determined to do something to help those targeted by vicious abuse.

Helping the resistance

By the mid-1930s, Muriel was established in Vienna: she owned several properties in Austria and was studying for her degree. Alongside this, she began to use her influence and contacts to try and smuggle Jews out of the country, persuading British families to give domestic jobs to young women which would allow them to leave the country and providing affidavits to get American visas for Jewish families.

On the ground, she also helped smuggle passports, papers and money to those in need, hiding people in her cottage, forging official documents and facilitating illegal border crossings into Czechoslovakia. No-one suspected the wealthy, slightly eccentric American heiress of working with the underground resistance.

In 1936, she began a relationship with the leader of the Austrian Revolutionary Socialists, Joe Buttinger, with whom she had fallen in love. They shared the same politics and she hid him in her isolated cottage at Sulz for periods.

Muriel’s cottage in the Vienna woods in the 1930s.

Image Credit: Connie Harvey / Courtesy of the Freud Museum London.

A heightened level of danger

In March 1938, the Nazis invaded Austria in what became known as the Anschluss. All of a sudden Muriel’s work took on a new urgency as life for Austrian Jews quickly deteriorated under the new Nazi regime. Working for the resistance also became more dangerous, with severe punishments for those caught.

Muriel managed to get Buttinger, now her husband and young daughter out of Austria to Paris in 1938, but she remained in Vienna, ostensibly to complete her medical exams, but also in order to continue her work for the resistance.

The Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, infiltrated every part of Austrian society, and the stakes were higher than ever for the work Muriel was doing. Nevertheless, she kept her cool, smuggling passports across the border to help get Jewish families out of the country, giving money to those who needed it and helping people out of the country where necessary.

In solidarity with the Jewish people she lived and worked with, Muriel registered herself as Jewish at the University of Vienna: her father was indeed Jewish, which made her so in the eyes of many (ethnically, even if not religiously). She took and passed her final medical exams and left Austria permanently in 1939.

Outbreak of war

When the Second World War began on 1 September 1939, Muriel and her family were in Paris. Under no illusions about the dangers and power of Nazi Germany, they fled to New York in November 1939.

Once Muriel was back in New York, she began helping German and Austrian refugees by giving them a place to stay as they began to build their new lives and used her connections in America and Austria to try and apply for as many emergency visas as possible for those in Austria who still wanted to get out.

Working tirelessly throughout the war, Muriel returned to Europe in 1945 as part of the International Rescue and Relief Committee.

Later life

Muriel worked as a psychiatrist in America for many years, and was well-respected in her field. She was good friends with Sigmund Freud’s daughter Anna, a respected psychiatrist herself, and the two became closer after the war. It was Muriel who helped fund the creation of the Freud Museum in London in order to preserve the house in which Freud died and Anna lived for many years.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, Muriel’s remarkable actions in the 1930s were remembered and became almost legendary. In 1973, Lilliam Hellman published a book called Pentiemento, in which the main character was a American millionairess who helped in the Austrian resistance. Many believed Hellman had used Muriel’s life story without permission in her book, although she denied this.

Spurred on by the fictionalised portrayal of her life, Muriel ended up writing her own memoirs, Code Name: Mary, in order to record her experiences and actions. She died in New Jersey in 1985, having been awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour (First Class) after her work for the resistance became public knowledge.

Code Name ‘Mary’: The Extraordinary Life of Muriel Gardiner is currently running at the Freud Museum, London until 23 January 2022.

It informed listeners that Londoners felt ‘the urge to raise their courage by resorting to drink’. ‘Never,’ an announcer said, ‘were so many drunken people seen in London as now.’

If that wasn’t bad enough, a reporter noted that horses were being slaughtered to ‘replenish England’s rapidly dwindling meat stocks’. On another occasion, the evening news divulged a shortage of butter had forced King George to start spreading margarine on his toast.

Propaganda in Germany

For listeners across Germany, where tracing individual strands of disinformation was near impossible, the news seemed legitimate.

Peter Meyer, a former singer with the radio choir, recounted how he helped dupe German listeners when he imitated a Polish teenager after the invasion of Poland in 1939: ‘The recordings took place in Berlin, never in Poland,’ he said. ‘This was perpetrated in the Berlin radio studios without a single foreigner in sight.’ The fake story being ‘played out’ was that young foreigners were delighted the Germans had come and that they got along so very well with their new-found German friends. He said:

I also went to Babelsberg, which was like the American Hollywood for that time and there I participated in films and the newsreels called Die Wochenschau. Again, we made films of the same kind of propaganda as mentioned above; I played foreign or German youth members and had to learn a few words of foreign languages for my roles.

Entrance to Babelsberg Film Studio, located just outside Berlin in Germany.

Image Credit: Unify / CC

An English audience?

Echoing the disinformation on the domestic service, the Nazis were also beaming a flood of distorted and outright false information at the United Kingdom in the English language where commentator, William Joyce, with his distinctive nasal, upper-crust drawl – found fame as ‘Lord Haw-Haw’.

Egged on by Goebbels, Joyce revelled in his privileged position on the broadcasting battlefront. To his mind, no theme was hackneyed if treated with originality. From his studio in West Berlin, he tried confusing British public perceptions of Churchill and his ability to wage war by mixing official German government fodder with subtle distortions of English newspaper stories and BBC news. Although the topics varied, the goal of was the always same: Britain was losing the war.

When rationing began in Britain, Joyce asserted that Germans were so well fed ‘it was difficult’ to use up their food quota. Another episode painted a pathetic picture of evacuated English children ‘going about in freezing weather with insufficient shoes and clothes’.

He screamed of a declining Britain in the throes of death where businesses had ‘come to a standstill’ under Churchill, the ‘corrupt dictator’ of England. Joyce often took the trouble to cite, though not to name, ‘experts’ and ‘reliable sources’ who could confirm its reality.

The rumour mill

As his fame spread, nonsensical rumours about his every utterance abounded across Britain. Haw-Haw was supposed to have spoken about town hall clocks being half-an-hour slow and having detailed knowledge of local munitions factories, but of course, he never said anything of the kind, as the Daily Herald’s W. N. Ewer complained:

In Didcot, for example, it is put about that ‘last night the German wireless said that Didcot is going to be the first town bombed.’ I have had that story (always from somebody whose brother-in-law actually heard it, or something of the kind) from at least a dozen different places. Of course, when you get hold of the brother-in-law, he says no, he didn’t actually hear the German wireless himself: it was a man up at the golf club whose sister heard it.

Occasionally, Joyce dipped his toe into agitation against the French. He perpetuated the false claim that an epidemic typhoid fever had broken out in Paris, where ‘more than 100 people have already died’. Furthermore, he confided, the French press had ignored the epidemic ‘in order to avoid a panic’.

The Haw-Haw technique

Far from ignoring this obvious menace, the London press – overwhelmed by the sheer volume of outrageous material – hung on to his every dubious word, propelling his fame skyward. However, experts were divided on whether the best defence against Haw-Haw was ridicule or reply.

Scholar of Philosophy at Edinburgh University, W. A. Sinclair, concluded that the ‘Haw-Haw technique’ was divided into three categories— ‘unskilled lying, semi-skilled lying and highly skilled lying’.

He explained ‘unskilled lying consisted in making plain, simple statements which aren’t true at all,’ while ‘semi-skilled lying,’ was composed of conflicting statements, part true and part false. ‘Highly skilled lying,’ he said, was when Haw-Haw made statements which were true but used to convey a wrong impression.

William Joyce, also known as Lord Haw-Haw, shortly after his arrest by British forces in 1945. He was executed for treason the following year at Wandsworth Prison.

Image Credit: Imperial War Museum / Public domain

The worldwide stage

Despite their obvious flair for fake news, not all Nazi disinformation efforts succeed. By 1940, Berlin was operating an extensive schedule of shortwave broadcasts intended for listeners overseas by beaming across the Atlantic to Central and South America, southward over Africa, and to Asia, in daylight and darkness.

Whilst the South American service proved popular, there was little interest in Arabic programmes which indulged in outrageous fantasies. In one example, it was stated a destitute Egyptian woman ‘caught begging’ in Cairo was shot by a British sentry. In an overt attempt to influence opinion, wholesale atrocities were invented, with no basis in fact, while Nazi military successes were exaggerated.

Furthermore, a hail of radio agitation directed against the British occupation of India with the help of exiled Indian leftist leader Subhas Chandra Bose, a man dubbed by the British as ‘the Indian Quisling’ failed to ignite listeners.

Stark realities

By 1942, Nazi-generated disinformation campaigns had become too much for many in Britain and abroad to stomach. As Haw-Haw’s star began to fall and Allied bombing on Germany intensified, Nazi radio slowly began to bridge the void between reality and propaganda.

Reports detailing the humiliating German retreat in North Africa, the critical manpower shortage and the ferocity of resistance in Russia were heard for the first time. There was more candour about everyday worries such as the black market, strained relations between soldiers and civilians, air raids and food shortages.

Richard Baier, who, at 93 years old, gave a fascinating account on his important work as a newsreader on Reichssender Berlin, relayed how he read the news during heavy raids, when the earth shook so violently the control panel instruments were unreadable.

As the bombing laid waste to vast swathes of Germany, domestic and foreign transmissions spluttered as technicians did their best to repair the damage. By 1945, William Joyce kept slogging away but was preparing for the end. ‘What a night! Drunk. Drunk. Drunk!’ he recalled, before rattling off his final speech, aided by a bottle of schnapps.

True to form, even with Hitler’s death, the Nazi radio continued to lie. Instead of disclosing the Führer’s suicide, his anointed successor, Admiral Doenitz, told listeners their heroic leader had ‘fallen at his post … fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany’.

In the coming days, the once mighty German radio network stumbled through its death scene to musical accompaniment and finally died away piecemeal.

Radio Hitler: Nazi Airwaves in the Second World War is written by Nathan Morley, and published by Amberley Publishing, available from 15 June 2021.

It is well-known that almost the entire Frank family, save Anne’s father Otto, were killed during the Holocaust. Lesser-known, however, is the story of how Otto Frank rebuilt his life in the aftermath. Otto went on to marry again: his new wife, Frieda Garrincha, had been known to him before as a neighbour, and had, along with the rest of her family, also endured the horrors of a concentration camp.

Otto Frank inaugurating the statue of Anne Frank, Amsterdam 1977

Image Credit: Bert Verhoeff / Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Otto’s step-daughter Eva Schloss (née Geiringer), who survived the concentration camp, did not speak of her experiences until after her stepfather Otto died. Today, she is celebrated as a memoirist and educator, and has also spoken to History Hit about her extraordinary life.

Here’s the story of Eva Schloss’ life, featuring quotes in her own words.

“Well, I was born in Vienna in an extended family, and we were very, very close to each other. So I felt very protected. My family was very much into sport. I loved skiing and acrobatics, and my father was a daredevil as well.”

Eva Schloss was born in Vienna in 1929 into a middle-class family. Her father was a shoe manufacturer while her mother and brother played piano duets. Upon Hitler’s invasion of Austria in March 1938, their lives changed forever. The Geiringers quickly emigrated first to Belgium and then Holland, in the latter renting a flat in square called the Merwendeplein. It was there that Eva first met their neighbours, Otto, Edith, Margot and Anne Frank.

Both families soon went into hiding to avoid Nazi round-ups of Jewish people. Schloss recounts hearing horror stories about Nazi behaviour during said round-ups.

“In one case, we read letters that said they felt beds which were still warm where people had been sleeping. So they realised it’s our people hiding somewhere. So they demolished the whole apartment ’til they found two people.”

On 11 May 11 1944, on Eva Schloss’ birthday, the Schloss family were moved to another hiding place in Holland. However, the Dutch nurse who led them there was a double agent, and immediately betrayed them. They were taken to the Gestapo HQ in Amsterdam where they were interrogated and tortured. Schloss remembers having to hear her brother’s cries as he was tortured in his cell.

“And, you know, I was ever so afraid that I just couldn’t speak at just cried and cried and cried. And Sansa beat me and then just said, ‘we are going to kill your brother if you don’t tell us [who offered to hide you].’ But I had no idea. You know, I didn’t know, but I had lost my speech. I really couldn’t talk.”

Schloss was transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. She came face to face with the infamous Josef Mengele as he was making decisions about who to immediately send to the gas chambers. Schloss maintains that her wearing a big hat disguised her young age, thus saving her from being immediately condemned to death.

‘Selection’ of Hungarian Jews on the ramp at Birkenau, May/June 1944

Image Credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

“And then Dr. Mengele came. He was a camp doctor, a proper medical man… but he wasn’t there to help people to survive… he decided who was going to die and who was going to live. So the first election was taking place. So he came and looked at you over for just a fraction of a second and decided right or left, meaning death or life.”

After being tattooed and having her head shaved, Schloss details being shown to their living quarters, which were squalid and consisted of three-storey high bunk beds. Menial, gruelling and often filthy work followed, while bedbugs and lack of bathing facilities meant that disease was rife. Indeed, Schloss details surviving typhus on account of knowing someone who worked with Josef Mengele who was able to give her medicine.

Schloss described enduring the freezing cold winter of 1944. By this time, she had no idea whether her father, brother or mother were dead or alive. On the verge of losing all hope, Schloss miraculously met her father again in the camp:

“…he said, hold on. The war will finish soon. We’ll be together again… he tried to encourage me not to give up. And he said that if I can come again, and three times he was able to come again and then I never saw him any more. So I can only say that is a miracle, I guess because it never, ever happens that a man came to see his family.”

Eva Schloss in 2010

Image Credit: John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

By the time Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by the Soviets in January 1945, Schloss and her mother were on the brink of death, while her father and brother had both died. After the liberation, while still in the camp she met Otto Frank, who enquired after his family, not yet knowing that they had all perished. They were both transported eastward in the same cattle train as before, but this time had a stove and were treated more humanely. Eventually, they made their way to Marseilles.

Aged just 16 years old, Schloss began to rebuild her life in the wake of surviving the horrors of the war. She went to England to study photography, where she met her husband Zvi Schloss, whose family had also been German refugees. The couple had three children together.

Though she didn’t speak about her experiences to anybody for 40 years, in 1986, Schloss was invited to speak at a travelling exhibition in London called Anne Frank and the World. Though originally shy, Schloss recalls the freedom that came with talking about her experiences for the first time.

“Then this exhibition travelled all over England and they always ask me to go and speak. Which, of course, I [asked] my husband to write a speech for me, which I read very badly. But eventually I found my voice.”

In the time since, Eva Schloss has travelled across the world sharing her experiences of the war. Listen to her extraordinary story here.

Whilst other camp physicians carried out experiments, Mengele is known to have particularly revelled in the opportunities and power that Auschwitz presented him. His subsequent postwar escape, prolonged successful evasion from capture and ultimate elusion of justice have further reinforced his evil notoriety.

Here are 10 facts about Josef Mengele.

1. Mengele’s early work focused on cleft palates

After gaining a medical degree, Mengele trained as a physical anthropologist, and in 1933 worked in Munich under anthropologist Theodor Mollison. Following his subsequent PhD in anthropology, Mengele joined the Frankfurt Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in 1937 – a research body closely aligned with Nazi ideology. Here he worked for Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a German geneticist interested in researching twins.

Like his mentor, Mengele was vehemently racist and a devoted Nazi Party member. Mengele focused on the heritability and genetic factors that result in a cleft lip and palate. This curiosity about fixing genetic anomalies reinforced Nazi legislation requiring the sterilisation of Germans with genetic disorders, and Mengele was soon considered an expert consultant on racial types.

2. He received the Iron Cross twice

When war broke-out, Mengele was a medical officer in the Waffen SS. In June 1941, he was posted to Ukraine and awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class. He then joined the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking as a battalion medical officer. After rescuing two German soldiers from a burning tank, he received the Iron Cross 1st Class, the Wound Badge in Black, and the Medal for the Care of the German People.

Seriously wounded in action, in 1942 Mengele was declared unfit for further active service. He resumed his association with von Verschauer, who encouraged him to transfer to the concentration camp service. In May 1943, Himmler posted Mengele to Auschwitz.

3. Mengele wasn’t the Chief Medical Officer of Auschwitz

Mengele worked under the jurisdiction of SS captain Dr Eduard Wirths – his actual rank was chief physician of the Romani family camp at Birkenau (Auschwitz II), a sub-camp located on the main Auschwitz complex.

It was only after 1944 when the remaining population of the Roma camp were sent to the gas chambers that Mengele was promoted to first physician of the entire Birkenau sub-camp.

Richard Baer, Josef Mengele, and Rudolf Höss in Auschwitz, 1944

Image Credit: Bernhard Walther or Ernst Hofmann or Karl-Friedrich Höcker, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

4. He conducted medical experiments on prisoners

Eager to advance his medical career by publishing ‘groundbreaking’ work, Mengele began experimenting on live prisoners, including exposing around 3,000 children at Auschwitz-Birkenau to disease, disfigurement and torture under the guise of medical ‘research’.

Mengele sometimes played psychological games with prisoners by ‘hiring’ them to assist him, injecting thousands of prisoners with many substances (including petrol, ink in the eyes, and chloroform to the heart) to study the effects, destroying women’s fallopian tubes with acid and experimenting on people with cleft palates.

5. He was obsessed with twins and physical abnormalities

Mengele wanted to continue the twin experiments he’d begun with von Verschuer. Abandoning medical ethics and research protocols, he started conducting horrific experiments on up to 1,500 sets of twins, many of them children.

At the time, identical twins were widely seen as the clue to understanding genetics. Mengele used one twin as a control and subjected the other to blood transfusions, forced insemination, injections with diseases, amputations, and murder. Those that died were dissected and studied; their surviving twins killed and subjected to the same scrutiny. Only 200 of the 3,000 twins subjected to medical experiments at Auschwitz survived.

Mengele based lots of experiments around subjects with physical abnormalities. He had a fascination with heterochromia (where someone’s irises are different colours). Mengele tried to change the eye colour of those in the camp with the condition by injecting their irises with chemicals. When that failed, he removed the eyeballs and sent them to eye-pigmentation expert Karin Magnussen.

‘Selection’ of Hungarian Jews on the ramp at Birkenau, May/June 1944

Image Credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Mengele was also fascinated by dwarves, particularly a Transylvanian family called the Ovtizes – whom seven of their ten children were dwarves. Allowed to keep their clothes and hair, they were placed under intense psychological scrutiny, their blood siphoned and their teeth removed. Miraculously, the entire Ovitz family survived.

6. He had a sinister calm

Unlike most other SS doctors who viewed selections as one of their most unpleasant duties, Mengele undertook this task easily. Mengele would often listen to music by Schumann and Schubert, and many Birkenau survivors recounted how he would whistle famous classical tunes while standing on the train platform, deciding who to send to the gas chambers with a flick of his glove. Of those selected to live, he conducted cruel, race-inspired medical experiments.

Mengele would often ‘play nice’ with the children of Auschwitz, giving them sweets, founding a kindergarten and playing them the violin to lull them into a false sense of security – before sending them to his medical laboratory.

7. Mengele became the most wanted Nazi

Mengele later transferred to Gross-Rosen camp. At the war’s end, he fled, disguised as a Wehrmacht officer.

In June 1945 Mengele was captured and held in US custody. As he had no SS blood group tattooed on his arm, and due to the chaos at the war’s end, US officials were unaware Mengele was on a list of major war criminals and released him. He obtained false papers and worked as a farmhand in Bavaria before escaping to South America in 1949.

8. Fake identity

Mengele remarried under his own name in Uruguay in 1958, and became a citizen of Paraguay in 1959, as ‘José Mengele’. In 1961 he settled in Brazil, protected by a makeshift network of German and Austrian expats, including former Nazi party member, Wolfgang Gerhard.

In the 1970s, Gerhard offered Mengele his ID card, which Mengele used from then on as his fake identity, sharing a coffee-and-cattle operation in Brazil with a Hungarian couple who kept his secret and housed him.

Rumours that Mengele’s son Rolf knew his father’s whereabouts proved correct when in a 1985 interview, Rolf revealed he had been in contact with his father (whom he initially knew as ‘Uncle Fritz’).

9. He never accepted guilt for his crimes

Rolf secretly visited his father in Sao Paulo in 1977, where Mengele told him that he “personally had never harmed anyone in his life”, declaring that he hadn’t invented Auschwitz – highlighting the extent of his delusions about his sadistic crimes.

Photograph from Mengele’s Argentine identification document (1956)

Image Credit: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Throughout the postwar years Mengele expressed no remorse, remaining oblivious or rationalising the enormity of his crimes, justifying his actions as doing his duty and carrying out orders as the Jews were already ‘dead upon arrival’.

10. He died of a stroke while swimming in Brazil

Mengele died on 7 Feburary 1979 while swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. His friends buried him under his assumed name. Later, pressured by the West German and Brazilian police, they revealed his grave’s location.

In 1985, a multinational team of forensic experts travelled to Brazil, and determined through dental records that Mengele had indeed taken Gerhard’s identity and was dead.

The pact stipulated that Adolf Hitler be allowed to annex the Sudetenland in exchange for a promise of peace and an end to his expansionist policies. Half a year later, Hitler annexed all of Czechoslovakia. Poland soon followed, and before long Europe was at war.

While some interpreted the Munich Agreement as Britain and France simply buying time to prepare for World War Two, many regard it as a unanimous failure, in which the Sudetenland was surrendered for a peace that never held.

Here’s the history of the Munich Agreement.

Hitler’s plans for the Sudetenland

Hitler annexed Austria into Germany in March 1938, part of his plan to absorb the German-speaking regions surrounding the country into a ‘greater Germany’. After his successful annexation of Austria, Hitler turned his attention to the Sudetenland, a border region of Czechoslovakia with 3 million people of German ancestry living there.

Hitler’s encroachment into the region began with political agitation there in the spring of 1938, and by May of that year, Hitler and his henchmen were readying for an invasion. If war became a reality, Czechoslovakia would expect military assistance from France as the two countries had an alliance.

France and Britain unprepared

But neither France nor Britain was prepared for war. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier met in April 1938 and reluctantly agreed that the best option to avert war would be for Czechoslovakia to cede its Sudeten region to Hitler.

Later in the year, Chamberlain and Daladier prepared a joint proposal for Hitler in which they outlined those terms: they would grant Hitler the Sudeten region for a promise of peace. Czechoslovakia, originally not even consulted on the matter by Britain and France, agreed to these terms on 21 September 1938.

While Chamberlain and Daladier were determined to maintain peace with Germany, many politicians and members of the public in Britain, France and further afield supported war, believing conflict to be the only feasible way to stifle Hitler’s expansionist policies.

Czechs protest in New York against the Munich Agreement, 1938.

Image Credit: Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo / Alamy Stock Photo

Europe on the edge of war

The very next day, on 22 September 1938, Hitler met with Chamberlain and upped his demands. He ordered the secession of Sudetenland within the week, demanded German troops be allowed to occupy the region and insisted that all Czechoslovakians in the area be evacuated. The British parliament refused the request, as did France and Czechoslovakia.

Czechoslovakia responded by mobilizing its troops on 23 September 1938. France began a partial mobilization the following day. Suddenly, war seemed imminent.

Broaching a deal

An emergency meeting was convened in Munich on 29 September, with Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler and also Italy’s Benito Mussolini present. Czechoslovak diplomats in the city weren’t invited.

Ultimately, an agreement was reached, stipulating that Czechoslovakia surrender the Sudetenland to the German Army by 10 October 1938. In return, Hitler promised peace and agreed that any future territorial disputes would be reviewed by an international council. The terms were essentially the same as the harsher demands Hitler had made a week earlier.

If the Czechoslovak government refused, it was made clear, Britain and France would not offer them military support. France’s refusal to provide military support to Czechoslovakia undermined both a 1924 alliance and 1925 military pact between the two countries. This became known by some Czechoslovaks as the Mnichovská zrada, or the ‘Munich betrayal’.

Ultimately, Czechoslovakia accepted the terms of the deal. The Munich Agreement was signed on 30 September 1938 by Chamberlain, Hitler, Daladier and Mussolini.

‘Peace for our time’

Shortly after the group meeting, Chamberlain met with Hitler privately and both parties signed a further statement expressing the joint “desire of our two countries never to go to war with one another again”. Peace between Britain and Germany, as Chamberlain saw it, was all but guaranteed.

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain proudly waving the ‘Munich Agreement’ in September 1938. 2 years later, Conservative MP Leo Amery would direct the words “…in the name of God, go” at him in the House of Commons. Chamberlain resigned in May 1940.

Image Credit: Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe via Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

When he returned to London, Chamberlain notoriously declared that the Munich Agreement promised “peace with honour” and “peace for our time”. Daladier wasn’t so jubilant: he was revolted by the secessions made to Hitler.

A failed peace pact

In March 1939, Hitler annexed the whole of Czechoslovakia. Then, on 1 September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Britain declared war on Germany two days later, and before long Chamberlain was replaced as Prime Minister by Winston Churchill.

Though the Munich Agreement did grant Britain and France several months with which to better prepare for war, it was an incontestible failure: Nazi Germany soon reignited its expansionist policies and war engulfed Europe.

The murder of prominent figures has historically sparked soul-searching, mass outpourings of grief and even conspiracy theories, as people struggle to come to terms with the consequences of assassinations.

Here are 10 assassinations from history that shaped the modern world.

1. Abraham Lincoln (1865)

Abraham Lincoln is arguably America’s most famous president: he led America through the Civil War, preserved the Union, abolished slavery, modernised the economy and bolstered the federal government. A champion of black rights, including voting rights, Lincoln was disliked by Confederate states.

His assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was a Confederate spy whose self-professed motive was to avenge the Southern states. Lincoln was shot at point-blank range whilst he was at the theatre, dying the following morning.

Lincoln’s death damaged relations between the North and South of the USA: his successor, President Andrew Johnson, presided over the Reconstruction era and was lenient on Southern states and granted amnesty to many former Confederates, to the frustration of some in the North.

2. Tsar Alexander II (1881)

Tsar Alexander II was known as the ‘Liberator’, enacting wide-ranging liberal reforms across Russia. His policies included the emancipation of serfs (peasant labourers) in 1861, the abolition of corporal punishment, the promotion of self-government and the ending of some of the nobility’s historic privileges.

His reign coincided with an increasingly volatile political situation in Europe and in Russia, and he survived several assassination attempts during his rule. These were mainly orchestrated by radical groups (anarchists and revolutionaries) who wanted to overthrow Russia’s system of autocracy.

He was assassinated by a group named Narodnaya Volya (The People’s Will) in March 1881, bringing an end to an era which had promised ongoing liberalisation and reform. Alexander’s successors, worried they would meet a similar fate, enacted much more conservative agendas.

An 1881 photograph of Tsar Alexander II’s body lying in state.

Image Credit: Public Domain

3. Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1914)

In June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was assassinated by a Serbian named Gavilo Princip in Sarajevo. Frustrated by the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia, Princip was a member of a nationalist organisation entitled Young Bosnia, which aimed to free Bosnia from the shackles of external occupation.

The assassination is widely believed to have been the catalyst for the outbreak of World War One in August 1914: underlying factors were exacerbated in the political fallout of the Archduke’s death and from 28 June 1914, Europe began an inexorable path to war.

4. Reinhard Heydrich (1942)

Nicknamed the ‘man with the iron heart’, Heydrich was one of the most important Nazis, and one of the main architects of the Holocaust. His brutality and chilling efficiency earned him the fear and loyalty of many, and unsurprisingly, many loathed him for his role in anti-Semitic policies across Nazi Europe.

Heydrich was assassinated on the orders of the exiled Czechoslovak government: his car was bombed and he was shot at. It took Heydrich a week to die from his injuries. Hitler ordered the SS to wreak revenge in Czechoslovakia in an attempt to hunt down the assassins.

Many consider Heydrich’s assassination a major turning point in Nazi fortunes, believing that had he lived, he may well have achieved major victories against the Allies.

5. Mahatma Gandhi (1948)

One of the earliest heroes of the civil rights movement, Gandhi spearheaded non-violent resistance to British rule as part of the Indian quest for independence. Having successfully helped campaign for independence, which was achieved in 1947, Gandhi turned his attention to trying to prevent religious violence between Hindus and Muslims.

He was assassinated in January 1948 by a Hindu nationalist, Nathuram Vinayak Godse, who viewed Gandhi’s stance as too accommodating towards Muslims. His death was mourned around the world. Godse was caught, tried and sentenced to death for his actions.

6. John F. Kennedy (1963)

President John F. Kennedy was America’s darling: young, charming and idealistic, Kennedy was welcome with open arms by many in the US, particularly due to his New Frontier domestic policies and staunchly anti-Communist foreign policy. Kennedy was assassinated on 22 November 1963 in Dallas, Texas. His death shocked the nation.

Despite serving less than 3 full years in office, he is consistently ranked as one of the best and most popular presidents in American history. His assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was apprehended, but was killed before he could be tried: many have viewed this as symptomatic of a wider cover up and a sign of conspiracy.

JFK’s assassination cast a long shadow and had a huge cultural impact in America. Politically, his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, passed much of the legislation set in place during Kennedy’s administration.

7. Martin Luther King (1968)

As the leader of the Civil Rights Movement in America, Martin Luther King met with plenty of anger and opposition over his career, including a nearly fatal stabbing in 1958, and he regularly received violent threats. Reportedly after hearing about JFK’s assassination in 1963, King told his wife that he believed he would die by assassination too.

King was shot dead on a hotel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968. His killer, James Earl Ray, initially pled guilty to the charge of murder, but later changed his mind. Many, including King’s family, believe his assassination was planned by the government and/or the mafia in order to silence him.

8. Indira Gandhi (1984)

Another victim of religious tensions in India, Indira Gandhi was the 3rd Prime Minister of India and remains the country’s only female leader to date. A somewhat divisive figure, Gandhi was politically intransigent: she supported the independence movement in East Pakistan and went to war over it, helping create Bangladesh.

A Hindu, she was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984 after ordering military action in the Golden Temple at Amritsar, one of the most important sites for Sikhs. Gandhi’s death resulted in violence against Sikh communities across India, and it’s estimated over 8,000 were killed as part of this retaliation.

Indira Gandhi in Finland in 1983.

Image Credit: Finnish Heritage Agency / CC

9. Yitzhak Rabin (1995)

Yitzhak Rabin was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel: first elected in 1974, he was re-elected in 1992 on a platform that embraced the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process. Subsequently, he signed various historic agreements as part of the Oslo Peace Accords, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

He was assassinated in 1995 by a right-wing extremist who opposed the Oslo Accords. Many view his death as also being the demise of the kind of peace he had envisaged and worked towards, making it one of the most tragically effective political assassinations of the 20th century, in that it killed off an idea as much as a man.

10. Benazir Bhutto (2007)

The first female Prime Minister of Pakistan, and the first woman to head a democratic government in a Muslim majority country, Benazir Bhutto was one of Pakistan’s most important political figures. Killed by a suicide bomb at a political rally in 2007, her death shook the international community.

However, many were not surprised by it. Bhutto was a controversial figure who had been tarred consistently by allegations of corruption, and Islamic fundamentalists opposed her prominence and political presence. Her death was mourned by millions of Pakistanis, particularly women, who had seen the promise of a different Pakistan under her tenure.