The Hitler cabinet was the government of Nazi Germany between 30 January 1933 and 30 April 1945 upon the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of the German Reich by President Paul von Hindenburg. It was contrived by the national conservative politician Franz von Papen, who reserved the office of the Vice-Chancellor for himself. Originally, Hitler's first cabinet was called the Reich Cabinet of National Salvation, which was a coalition of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and the national conservative German National People's Party (DNVP). The formation of a Nazi dominated government marked the beginning of Hitler's dictatorship, which lasted until his suicide during the defeat of Nazi Germany. Hitler's cabinet was succeeded by the short-lived Goebbels cabinet, with Karl Dönitz appointed by Hitler as the new Reichspräsident.
The Deutsche Reichsbahn, also known as the German National Railway, the German State Railway, German Reich Railway, and the German Imperial Railway, was the German national railway system created after the end of World War I from the regional railways of the individual states of the German Empire. The Deutsche Reichsbahn has been described as "the largest enterprise in the capitalist world in the years between 1920 and 1932"; nevertheless, its importance "arises primarily from the fact that the Reichsbahn was at the center of events in a period of great turmoil in German history".
The Reich Chancellery was the traditional name of the office of the Chancellor of Germany in the period of the German Reich from 1878 to 1945. The Chancellery's seat, selected and prepared since 1875, was the former city palace of Prince Antoni Radziwiłł (1775–1833) on Wilhelmstraße in Berlin. Both the palace and a new Reich Chancellery building were seriously damaged during World War II and subsequently demolished.
Herbert Friedrich Wilhelm Backe was a German politician and SS Senior group leader (SS-Obergruppenführer) in Nazi Germany who served as State Secretary and Minister in the Reich Ministry of Food and Agriculture. He was a doctrinaire racial ideologue, a long-time associate of Richard Walther Darré and a personal friend of Reinhard Heydrich. He developed and implemented the Operation Hunger that envisioned death by starvation of millions of Slavic and Jewish "useless eaters" following Operation Barbarossa, the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union.
Otto Lebrecht Eduard Daniel Meissner was head of the Office of the President of Germany from 1920 to 1945 during nearly the entire period of the Weimar Republic under Friedrich Ebert and Paul von Hindenburg and, finally, under the Nazi government under Adolf Hitler.
Wilhelmstrasse is a major thoroughfare in the central Mitte and Kreuzberg districts of Berlin, Germany. Until 1945, it was recognised as the centre of the government, first of the Kingdom of Prussia, later of the unified German Reich, housing in particular the Reich Chancellery and the Foreign Office. The street's name was thus also frequently used as a metonym for overall German governmental administration: much as the term "Whitehall" is often used to signify the British governmental administration as a whole. In English, "the Wilhelmstrasse" usually referred to the German Foreign Office.
The Deutsche Reichsbahn or DR(German Reich Railways) was the operating name of state owned railways in the German Democratic Republic, and after German reunification until 1 January 1994.
Erich Klausener was a German Catholic politician and Catholic martyr in the "Night of the Long Knives", a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from 30 June to 2 July 1934, when the Nazi regime carried out a series of political murders.
Voßstraße is a street in central Berlin, the capital of Germany. It runs east–west from Ebertstraße to Wilhelmstraße in the borough of Mitte, one street north of Leipziger Straße and very close to Potsdamer Platz. It is best known for being the location of Hitler's new Reich Chancellery complex, and the bunker where he spent his last days.
Peter Paul Freiherr von Eltz-Rübenach was Reich Postal Minister (Reichspostminister) and Reich Minister of Transport (Reichsminister für Verkehr) of Germany between 1932 and 1937.
The government of Nazi Germany was a totalitarian dictatorship governed by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party according to the Führerprinzip. Nazi Germany was established in January 1933 with the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany, followed by suspension of basic rights with the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act which gave Hitler's regime the power to pass and enforce laws without the involvement of the Reichstag or German president, and de facto ended with Germany's surrender in World War II on 8 May 1945 and de jure ended with the Berlin Declaration on 5 June 1945.
The Führer Headquarters, abbreviated FHQ, were a number of official headquarters used by the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and various other German commanders and officials throughout Europe during World War II. The last one used, the Führerbunker in Berlin, where Hitler committed suicide on 30 April 1945, is the most widely known headquarter. Other notable headquarters are the Wolfsschanze in East Prussia, where Claus von Stauffenberg in league with other conspirators attempted to assassinate Hitler on 20 July 1944, and Hitler's private home, the Berghof, at Obersalzberg near Berchtesgaden, where he frequently met with prominent foreign and domestic officials.
Wilhelm Ohnesorge was a German politician in the Third Reich who sat in the Hitler Cabinet. From 1937 to 1945, he was the Reichsminister of the Reich Postal Ministry, the German postal service, having succeeded Paul Freiherr von Eltz-Rübenach. Along with his ministerial duties, Ohnesorge also significantly delved into research relating to propagation and promotion of the Nazi Party through the radio, and the development of a proposed German atomic bomb.
Julius Heinrich Dorpmueller was general manager of Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft from 1926 to 1945, a Nazi politician and the Reich Minister for Transport from 1937 to 1945.
Albert Ganzenmüller was a German Nazi and, as the State Secretary at the Reich Transport Ministry (Reichsverkehrsministerium), was involved in the deportation of German Jews.
The Vorbunker was an underground concrete structure originally intended to be a temporary air-raid shelter for Adolf Hitler and his guards and servants. It was located behind the large reception hall that was added onto the old Reich Chancellery, in Berlin, Germany, in 1936. The bunker was officially called the "Reich Chancellery Air-Raid Shelter" until 1943, when the complex was expanded with the addition of the Führerbunker, located one level below. On 16 January 1945, Hitler moved into the Führerbunker. He was joined by his senior staff, including Martin Bormann. Later, Eva Braun and Joseph Goebbels moved into the Führerbunker while Magda Goebbels and their six children took residence in the upper Vorbunker. The Goebbels family lived in the Vorbunker until their deaths on 1 May 1945.
The Borsig Palace was an iconic building at the corner of Voßstraße and Wilhelmstraße in the center of Berlin and one of the grandest Italianate villas in Germany. Completed in 1877 for industrialist Albert Borsig, who died before he could move in, the building served for a time as a bank. In 1933 it became the residence of Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, where dramatic scenes relating to the Night of the Long Knives would play out just one year later. In the aftermath, Palais Borsig was converted into the new headquarters of the Sturmabteilung on Adolf Hitler's direct orders. It was then integrated into the New Reich Chancellery by Albert Speer in 1938. The palace was severely damaged in World War II and, together with Hitler's Chancellery, demolished by the Soviet forces in 1947.
Gustav Hermann William August Koenigs was a German lawyer and State Secretary of Transport during the Weimar period and the Third Reich. The conspirators of the 20 July plot planned for him to become Reich Transport Minister had the coup d'état succeeded. He was arrested and released by the Gestapo and died in an airstrike toward the end of the Second World War.
Kuno Heinrich Franziskus Maria Hubertus Reichsfreiherr und Edler Herr von und zu Eltz-Rübenach was a member of the Reichstag of Nazi Germany and a SS-Brigadeführer.
Wilhelm Otto Max Kleinmann was a German railway official and politician. From 1933 to 1942 he was Deputy General Director of the Deutsche Reichsbahn and, from 1938 to 1942, a State Secretary in the Reich Ministry of Transport. At the end of the Second World War, he was captured by Soviet forces and was declared to have died in captivity.
