BIOGRAPHY - E

ECKART, DIETRICH (1868-1923) Anti-semitic poet, writer and journalist who became one of Hitler's earliest intellectual mentors. After serving in the army during WWI, Eckart returned to Munich in 1915 and entered politics after the November revolution of 1918. Began publishing the nationalist weekly Auf Gut Deutsch, which frequently attacked the Versailles Treaty, Jewish war profiteers, Bolshevism and Social Democracy. After helping Hitler obtain funds to purchase the Volkischer Beobachter, the party newspaper, Eckart becames its first editor- in-chief. Briefly imprisoned in Stadelheim prison and died on December 23, 1923, while Hitler was in jail for attempting to take over the Bavarian government during the Munich putsch.

ECKENER. DR. HUGO Chairman of the Zeppelin Company, the company that built the airship Hindenburg. Eckner envisioned it as the first in a large fleet, his plan was quickly scrapped after the hydrogen filled craft burst into flames while landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6, 1937, after a transatlantic flight. Whatever the cause of this accident which killed 36 people, including its Captain Ernst Lehmann, airships quickly fell out of favor because of the danger associated with them. The danger associated with hydrogen combined with the U.S. refusal to share the helium it controlled ensured that the era of the airship quickly came to an end.

EDEN, SIR ANTHONY (LORD AVON) (1895-1977) Conservative British statesman and foreign minister from 1935 to 1938, when he resigned in opposition to Neville Chamberlain's "appeasement" of the Axis powers. As foreign minister in Winston Churchill's war cabinet (1940–45), he was instrumental in establishing the UN. After the Labour Party's defeat in 1951, he once again became foreign minister. Succeeded Churchill as prime minister in 1955. His decision to use armed intervention in the Suez Canal crisis in 1956 provoked much controversy. Resigned in 1957 due to poor health and was made a life peer in 1961.

EICHMANN, ADOLF (1906-1962) SS Lieutenant Colonel and head of IVB4, the Jewish department of the RSHA. Eichmann, who was raised in Austria, served as official secretary during the Wannsee Conference and was instrumental in implementing the "Final Solution," organizing transports of Jews from all over Europe to the Nazi killing centers in the East. He was arrested at the end of the war in the American zone of Germany, and later managed to escape to Latin America. In 1960, members of the Israeli Secret Service (Mossad) discovered Eichmann in Argentina, kidnapped him, and secretly flew him to Israel for trial. He was tried in Jerusalem (April- August 1961), sentenced to death (December 2, 1961), and executed (May 31, 1962). His ashes were scattered in the sea.

EISNER, KURT (1867-1919) Radical journalist and revolutionary who led the Socialist overthrow of the Bavarian monarchy in 1918. Eisner, born in Berlin, became President of the Bavarian revolutionary government and first Prime Minister of the Free State of Bavaria. He was assassinated in 1919 by Count Anton Arco-Vally.

ELKES, ELCHANAN (1879-1944) Physician and chairman of the Council of Elders in the Kovno ghetto in Lithuania. He earned the respect of the Jewish ghetto population through his courageous dealings with Nazi officials and his support of the resistance. Despite his appeals, the Kovno ghetto was liquidated in July 1944, its inhabitants sent to camps in Germany. He died of illness on 17 October 1944.

EPP, FRANZ RITTER von (1868-1946) Bavarian Colonel in World War I. After the war, Epp organized the counter-revolutionary Free Corps and "liberated" Munich from the "Reds." Joined Nazi party in 1928. Reich governor of Bavaria in 1933. Promoted to the rank of general in 1935. Was among Hitler's critics inside the party. Shortly before the end of the war, attempted an uprising against the NSDAP in Bavaria.

ESSER, HERMANN (1900-1981) One of Hitler's earliest comrades. NSDAP propaganda chief, 1925-26. Appointed Bavarian Economy minister in 1933, president of Reich Tourist Traffic Association in 1936 and state secretary of the Reich Propaganda Ministry. In 1950, Esser was sentenced to five years in labor camp but was released in 1951. Kept a low profile in Germany for the next thirty years.

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