On the surface the pact guaranteed that neither side would fight against the other in war. However a ‘secret protocol’ also outlined how Eastern Europe would be divided between the two countries in the future.
The move by Hitler effectively merged the offices of both the President and Chancellor into one role, and therefore completed what the Nazis referred to as Gleichschaltung (or ‘Co-ordination’) by establishing Hitler as both Germany’s head of state and head of government.
Both Hitler and Mussolini were concerned about the risk of the Spanish Civil War escalating into a European-wide conflict, so at first their support for the Nationalists was small-scale and consisted mainly of transporting existing Spanish troops from Morocco to the mainland. As the war progressed their involvement grew.
Despite its initially poor reception, Mein Kampf became a popular book with hundreds of thousands of copies sold each year after Hitler became Chanceller of Germany in 1933.
The Battle of Berlin ended after German General Helmuth Weidling surrendered to Soviet General Vasily Chuikov.
The Spanish Civil War began in July 1936 after a military coup by Spanish forces in North Africa failed to secure complete control over the country.
The German Empire established its first air force, the Fliegertruppe, in 1910 which saw extensive action in the First World War.
SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich called the meeting in the Berlin suburb, in which he outlined the deportation of European Jews to extermination camps in Poland where they would be systematically murdered.
In November 1923 Hitler was imprisoned after he led a failed coup against the Weimar Government by trying to seize power in the Bavarian city of Munich.
Although directed against the Communist International, the organisation that sought to create a worldwide communist republic, the Anti-Comintern Pact was in reality against the Soviet Union.
28th June 2015
11th November 2022
11th November 2022
9th November 2019
