HITLER AND HIS HENCHMEN

The Early Nazi Leaders

Josef Goebbels

• Did not fight in the WW I due to crippled foot• Intelligent, well educated and a brilliant public

speaker• Joined the Nazis in 1922• Editor of the Nazi newspaper Volkische

Freiheit (People’s Freedom)

Hermann Goering

• Fought in the airforce in the WW I• Won the highest medal for bravery under fire• Loud, swaggering character. Intelligent, witty and

charming but also vain and greedy• Joined the Nazis in 1922• In charge of the SA

Rudolf Hess

• Soldier and a pilot in the WW I• Joined the Nazis in 1920• Worshipped Hitler.• Not ambitious• Initially Hitler’s private secretary and later

responsible for party administration

Heinrich Himmler

• Brief stint into the WW I• Frail and timid youth but hard-working and

precise.• Joined the Nazis in 1923• Early post- Gauleiter (regional party chief)

Ernst Rohm

• Captain in the Germany army during the WW I• Tough, brutal and efficient leader with a violent

temper• Joined the Freikorps and helped in crushing the

Sparticist Rising• Founder member of the German Worker’s Party in

1919• Supported Hitler and ran the SA for Hitler in

1921