Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer was a German statesman who served as the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1963. From 1946 to 1966, he was the first leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a Christian-democratic party he co-founded, which became the dominant force in the country under his leadership.
On 20 July 1944, Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia, now Kętrzyn, in present-day Poland. The name "Operation Valkyrie"—originally referring to part of the conspiracy—has become associated with the entire event.
Markus Johannes Wolf, also known as Mischa, was head of the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance, the foreign intelligence division of East Germany's Ministry for State Security. He was the Stasi's number two for 34 years, which spanned most of the Cold War. He is often regarded as one of the best-known spymasters during the Cold War. In the West he was known as "the man without a face" due to his elusiveness.
Hans Josef Maria Globke was a German lawyer, high-ranking civil servant and politician, who was Under-Secretary of State and Chief of Staff of the German Chancellery in West Germany from 28 October 1953 to 15 October 1963. In 1936, Globke wrote a legal annotation on the antisemitic Nuremberg Race Laws that did not express any objection to the discrimination against Jews, placing the Nazi Party on a firmer legal ground and setting the path to the Holocaust during World War II. By 1938, Globke had been promoted to Ministerialdirigent in the Office for Jewish Affairs in the Ministry of the Interior, where he produced the Namensänderungsverordnung, a law that forced Jewish men to take the middle name Israel and Jewish women Sara for easier identification. In 1941, he issued another statute that stripped Jews in occupied territories of their statehood and possessions. Globke was identified as the author of an interior ministry report from France, written in racist language, that complained of "coloured blood into Europe" and called for the "elimination" of its "influences" on the gene pool.
Topics related to Germany include:
Reinhard Gehlen was a German lieutenant-general and intelligence officer. He was chief of the Wehrmacht Foreign Armies East military intelligence service on the eastern front during World War II, spymaster of the CIA-affiliated anticommunist Gehlen Organisation (1946–56) and the founding president of the Federal Intelligence Service of West Germany (1956–68) during the Cold War.
Jakob Kaiser was a German politician and resistance leader during World War II.
The People's Court was a Sondergericht of Nazi Germany, set up outside the operations of the constitutional frame of law. Its headquarters were originally located in the former Prussian House of Lords in Berlin, later moved to the former Königliches Wilhelms-Gymnasium at Bellevuestrasse 15 in Potsdamer Platz.
Hans Speidel was a German general, who was one of the major military leaders of West Germany during the early Cold War. The first full General in West Germany, he was a principal founder of the Bundeswehr and a major figure in German rearmament, integration into NATO and international negotiations on European and Western defence cooperation in the 1950s. He served as Commander of the Allied Land Forces Central Europe (COMLANDCENT) from 1957 to 1963 and then as President of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs from 1964.
Eugen Karl Albrecht Gerstenmaier was a German Evangelical theologian, resistance fighter in the Third Reich, and a CDU politician. From 1954 to 1969, he served as President of the Bundestag. With a tenure of over 14 years, he is, as yet, the longest serving presiding officer of the German parliament and also the only person to preside over the Bundestag during four legislative periods.
Erich Kordt, was a German diplomat who was involved in the German Resistance to the regime of Adolf Hitler.
Theodor Oberländer was an Ostforschung scientist and German Nazi official and politician, who after the Second World War served as Federal Minister for Displaced Persons, Refugees and Victims of War in West Germany from 1953 to 1960, and as a Member of the Bundestag from 1953 to 1961 and from 1963 to 1965.
Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff was an officer in the German Army. He attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler by suicide bombing on 21 March 1943; the plan failed when Hitler left early, but Gersdorff was undetected. That same month, soldiers from his unit discovered the mass graves of the Soviet-perpetrated Katyn massacre.
Heinz Paul Johann Felfe was a German spy.
Waldemar Kraft was a German politician. A member of the SS in Nazi Germany, he served as Managing Director of the Reich Association for Land Management in the Annexed Territories from 1940 to 1945, administering parts of occupied Poland. After the war, he became a West German politician, sitting in the Landtag of Schleswig-Holstein from 1950 to 1953 and serving as Minister of Finance. He entered the Bundestag in 1953 and served as Federal Minister for Special Affairs in the Cabinet of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer from 1953 to 1956. He retired from the Bundestag in 1961.
Robert Lehr was a German politician. He served as Federal Minister of the Interior from 1950 to 1953 under chancellor Konrad Adenauer.
Otto Armster was a German military intelligence-officer and a member of the German resistance, involved in the 20 July plot of 1944, the attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
Otto Lenz was a German politician (CDU), serving from 1951 to 1953 as Head of the Chancellery, and from 1953 until his death as a member of the German Bundestag. He was also a signatory of the founding declaration of the CDU.
The following lists events that happened during 1959 in Germany.
![Otto John (3rd from left) in East-Berlin with Wilhelm Girnus [de],Hermann Henselmann and Erich Correns (6 August 1954) Bundesarchiv Bild 183-25798-0008,Berlin,Karl-Marx-Allee,Girnus,Henselmann,Otto John,Correns.jpg](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-25798-0008%2C_Berlin%2C_Karl-Marx-Allee%2C_Girnus%2C_Henselmann%2C_Otto_John%2C_Correns.jpg/220px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-25798-0008%2C_Berlin%2C_Karl-Marx-Allee%2C_Girnus%2C_Henselmann%2C_Otto_John%2C_Correns.jpg)
