Order Of The German Eagle
The Order of Merit of the German Eagle (german: Verdienstorden vom Deutschen Adler) was an award of the German Nazi regime, predominantly to foreign diplomats. The Order was instituted on 1 May 1937 by Adolf Hitler. It ceased to be awarded following the collapse of Nazi Germany at the end of World War II in Europe. The wearing of the Order of Merit of the German Eagle is prohibited in the Federal Republic of Germany. Criteria The Order of Merit of the German Eagle was a diplomatic and honorary award given to prominent foreigners, particularly diplomats. In addition to awards to non-Germans, the Reich Foreign Minister and the Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia received a 'Special Degree' (Sonderstufe), with identical insignia to the Grand Cross of the Order. Accordingly, Foreign Minister Constantin von Neurath, received the Special Degree of the Order, with a further award to Joachim von Ribbentrop on his appointment as Foreign Minister in 1938. In 1943 Dr. Wilhelm Frick ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Order Of Merit Of The German Eagle
The Order of Merit of the German Eagle (german: Verdienstorden vom Deutschen Adler) was an award of the German Nazi regime, predominantly to foreign diplomats. The Order was instituted on 1 May 1937 by Adolf Hitler. It ceased to be awarded following the collapse of Nazi Germany at the end of World War II in Europe. The wearing of the Order of Merit of the German Eagle is prohibited in the Federal Republic of Germany. Criteria The Order of Merit of the German Eagle was a diplomatic and honorary award given to prominent foreigners, particularly diplomats. In addition to awards to non-Germans, the Reich Foreign Minister and the Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia received a 'Special Degree' (Sonderstufe), with identical insignia to the Grand Cross of the Order. Accordingly, Foreign Minister Constantin von Neurath, received the Special Degree of the Order, with a further award to Joachim von Ribbentrop on his appointment as Foreign Minister in 1938. In 1943 Dr. Wilhelm Frick ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu (; ; – 1 June 1946) was a Romanian military officer and marshal who presided over two successive wartime dictatorships as Prime Minister and '' Conducător'' during most of World War II. A Romanian Army career officer who made his name during the 1907 peasants' revolt and the World War I Romanian Campaign, the antisemitic Antonescu sympathized with the far-right and fascist National Christian and Iron Guard groups for much of the interwar period. He was a military attaché to France and later Chief of the General Staff, briefly serving as Defense Minister in the National Christian cabinet of Octavian Goga as well as the subsequent First Cristea cabinet, in which he also served as Air and Marine Minister. During the late 1930s, his political stance brought him into conflict with King Carol II and led to his detainment. Antonescu nevertheless rose to political prominence during the political crisis of 1940, and established the National Legionary State, an u ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Risto Ryti
Risto Heikki Ryti (; 3 February 1889 – 25 October 1956) served as the fifth president of Finland from 1940 to 1944. Ryti started his career as a politician in the field of economics and as a political background figure during the interwar period. He made a wide range of international contacts in the world of banking and within the framework of the League of Nations. Ryti served (1939–1940) as prime minister during the Winter War of 1939–1940 and the Interim Peace of 1940–1941. Later he became president during the Continuation War of 1941–1944. After the war, Ryti was the main defendant in the Finnish war-responsibility trials (1945–1946), which resulted in his conviction for crimes against peace. Ryti penned the 1944 Ryti–Ribbentrop Agreement (named after Ryti and Joachim von Ribbentrop), a personal letter from Ryti to Nazi German Führer Adolf Hitler whereby Ryti agreed not to reach a separate peace in the Continuation War against the Soviet Union without appro ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Isoroku Yamamoto
was a Marshal Admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet during World War II until he was killed. Yamamoto held several important posts in the IJN, and undertook many of its changes and reorganizations, especially its development of naval aviation. He was the commander-in-chief during the early years of the Pacific War and oversaw major engagements including the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway. Yamamoto was killed in April 1943 after American code breakers identified his flight plans, enabling the United States Army Air Forces to shoot down his plane. His death was a major blow to Japanese military morale during World War II. Family background Yamamoto was born in Nagaoka, Niigata. His father, Sadayoshi Takano (高野 貞吉), was an intermediate-rank ''samurai'' of the Nagaoka Domain. " Isoroku" is an old Japanese term meaning "56"; the name referred to his father's age at Isoroku's birth. In 1916, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hiroshi Ōshima
Baron was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army, Japanese ambassador to Germany before and during World War II and (unwittingly) a major source of communications intelligence for the Allies. His role was perhaps best summed up by General George C. Marshall, who identified Ōshima as "our main basis of information regarding Hitler's intentions in Europe". After World War II, he was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment, but was paroled in 1955. Biography Early life Ōshima came from a provincial low ranking samurai family from Gifu Prefecture. His father a known Germanophile, a trait the future ambassador to Berlin would inherit, nevertheless rose up the ranks and eventually served as Army Minister from 1916 to 1918, ironically waging war against Imperial Germany. Much was thus expected of the young Ōshima and his rise in the Imperial Army structure was swift. He graduated from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in June 1905, the 18th of his class, and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hideki Tojo
Hideki Tojo (, ', December 30, 1884 – December 23, 1948) was a Japanese politician, general of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA), and convicted war criminal who served as prime minister of Japan and president of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association for most of World War II. He assumed several more positions including chief of staff of the Imperial Army before ultimately being removed from power in July 1944. During his years in power, his leadership was marked by extreme state-perpetrated violence in the name of Japanese ultranationalism, much of which he was personally involved in. Hideki Tojo was born on December 30, 1884, to a relatively low-ranking samurai family in the Kōjimachi district of Tokyo. He began his career in the Army in 1902 and steadily rose through the ranks to become a general by 1934. In March 1937, he was promoted to chief of staff of the Kwantung Army whereby he led military operations against the Chinese in Inner Mongolia and the Chaha ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Constantin Freiherr Von Neurath
Konstantin Hermann Karl Freiherr von Neurath (2 February 1873 – 14 August 1956) was a German diplomat and Nazi war criminal who served as Foreign Minister of Germany between 1932 and 1938. Born to a Swabian noble family, Neurath began his diplomatic career in 1901. He fought in World War I and was awarded the Iron Cross for his service. After the war, Neurath served as minister to Denmark, ambassador to Italy and ambassador to Britain. In 1932, he was appointed Foreign Minister by Chancellor Franz von Papen, and he continued to hold the post under Adolf Hitler. In the early years of the Nazi regime, Neurath was regarded as playing a key role in Hitler's foreign policy pursuits in undermining the Treaty of Versailles and in territorial expansion in the prelude to World War II. However, he was often averse to Hitler's aims for tactical, not necessarily ideological, reasons. That aversion eventually induced Hitler to replace Neurath in 1938 with the more compliant Joachim von R ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim
Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim (, ; 4 June 1867 – 27 January 1951) was a Finnish military leader and statesman. He served as the military leader of the Whites in the Finnish Civil War of 1918, as Regent of Finland (1918–1919), as commander-in-chief of Finland's defence forces during the period of World War II (1939–1945), as Marshal of Finland (1942–), and as the sixth president of Finland (1944–1946). The Russian Empire dominated the Grand Duchy of Finland before 1917, and Mannerheim made a career in the Imperial Russian Army, rising by 1917 to the rank of lieutenant general. He had a prominent place in the ceremonies for Emperor Nicholas II's coronation in 1896 and later had several private meetings with the Tsar. After the Bolshevik revolution of November 1917 in Russia, Finland declared its independence (6 December 1917) – but soon became embroiled in the 1918 Finnish Civil War between the pro-Bolshevik "Reds" and the "Whites", who were the troop ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya ( hu, Vitéz nagybányai Horthy Miklós; ; English: Nicholas Horthy; german: Nikolaus Horthy Ritter von Nagybánya; 18 June 1868 – 9 February 1957), was a Hungarian admiral and dictator who served as the regent of the Kingdom of Hungary between the two World Wars and throughout most of World War II – from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944. Horthy started his career as a sub-lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian Navy in 1896 and attained the rank of rear admiral in 1918. He saw action in the Battle of the Strait of Otranto and became commander-in-chief of the Navy in the last year of World War I; he was promoted to vice admiral and commander of the Fleet when Emperor-King Charles dismissed the previous admiral from his post following mutinies. During the revolutions and interventions in Hungary from Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia, Horthy returned to Budapest with the National Army; the parliament subsequently invited him to becom ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of the Holocaust. As a member of a reserve battalion during World War I, Himmler did not see active service, and did not fight. He studied agriculture in university, and joined the Nazi Party in 1923 and the SS in 1925. In 1929, he was appointed by Adolf Hitler. Over the next 16 years, he developed the SS from a 290-man battalion into a million-strong paramilitary group, and set up and controlled the Nazi concentration camps. He was known for good organisational skills and for selecting highly competent subordinates, such as Reinhard Heydrich in 1931. From 1943 onwards, he was both Chief of German Police and Minister of the Interior, overseeing all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo (Secret State Police). H ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco Bahamonde (; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general who led the Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War and thereafter ruled over Spain from 1939 to 1975 as a dictator, assuming the title '' Caudillo''. This period in Spanish history, from the Nationalist victory to Franco's death, is commonly known as Francoist Spain or as the Francoist dictatorship. Born in Ferrol, Galicia, into an upper-class military family, Franco served in the Spanish Army as a cadet in the Toledo Infantry Academy from 1907 to 1910. While serving in Morocco, he rose through the ranks to become a brigadier general in 1926 at age 33, which made him the youngest general in all of Europe. Two years later, Franco became the director of the General Military Academy in Zaragoza. As a conservative and monarchist, Franco regretted the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the Second Republic in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Roberto Farinacci
Roberto Farinacci (; 16 October 1892 – 28 April 1945) was a leading Italian Fascist politician and important member of the National Fascist Party before and during World War II as well as one of its ardent antisemitic proponents. English historian Christopher Hibbert describes him as "slavishly pro-German". Early life Born in Isernia, Molise, Farinacci was raised in poverty and dropped out of school at a young age, moving to Cremona and beginning working on a railroad there in 1909. Around this time period, he became an irredentist socialist and a major advocate of Italy's participation in the war when World War I began. After the war, Farinacci was an ardent supporter of Benito Mussolini and his fascist movement. He subsequently established himself as the '' Ras'' (local leader, a title borrowed from the Ethiopian aristocracy) of the Fascists in Cremona, publishing the newspaper ''Cremona Nuova'' (later on ''Il Regime Fascista'') and organizing Blackshirts combat squads in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |