Famous People of the Nazi Era Trivia Quiz

Answer: Carl Orff

"O Fortuna" is the first movement of "Carmina Burana", a truly inspiring composition with Latin lyrics. The opening movement is the most well known of Orff's work and is often used in television shows to create an atmosphere of anticipation and perhaps to develop an air of menace.

There have been many suggestions that the German composer Carl Orff collaborated with the Nazi party, but it must be stressed that none of these allegations has been conclusively proven. What can be proven is that his composition, released in 1937, was massively popular in Germany during the Nazi era and is still a celebrated piece.

Answer: Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was an Ashkenazi Jew born in the German city of Ulm in 1879. Just a few months before Hitler became German chancellor in January 1933, Einstein left Germany for the safety of the United States of America. By 1940, the Nobel prize winning physicist gained American citizenship.

Other famous Ashkenazi Jews include the conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein and the Romantic composer Felix Mendelssohn.

Answer: Richard Strauss

His role as President of the State Music Bureau brought the composer into contact with senior Nazi officials. Despite taking this role however, it is believed that Strauss remained apolitical. It is likely that his involvement with the Nazi party was limited, as he had many Jewish friends and relatives.

Answer: Leni Riefenstahl

"Triumph of the Will" was a propaganda documentary which portrayed Adolf Hitler as a messianic character who was breaking through the clouds in his private plane; descending upon the 'Vaterland' offering salvation to the wildly cheering and deeply grateful Volk. Interestingly, Adolf Hitler was the first candidate for a top political job in any country to conduct his election campaigns by using aviation as a means of transport.

Due to the policy towards women that the Nazis implemented which exuded the idea of "equal but opposite" where women had a vital domestic role to play in the Reich, it is surprising that Leni Riefenstahl even got to the position that she did. However, her explicit connection with the Nazi movement ruined her directing and acting career post-1945. She died at the age of 101 in 2003.

Answer: Enamelware

Oskar Schindler became very wealthy through producing enamelware and ammunition, but behind the money making he employed over one thousand Jews to work at his factory thus sparing them from appalling treatment and almost certain death in concentration camps.

During the rule of Adolf Hitler from 1933 to 1945, if you wanted to make a good living, you generally had to be a member of the Nazi party or join an affiliated organisation. It is therefore unsatisfactory to conclude that all members of the Nazi party were anti-Semites, or convinced adherents of Nazi ideology, as many were there so that they could bring home a good wage. It is the actions of each Nazi that decides their morality, as the case of Oskar Schindler ultimately proves.

Answer: Karl Popper

In 1902, Karl Popper was born in Vienna, a city at the time under the control of Austria-Hungary. Popper was born in to a family that had Jewish influences (though Sir Karl was admittedly agnostic), so when the anti-Semitic Nazis annexed Austria, Popper moved to New Zealand. He couldn't really get much further away! After the Nazis were defeated and World War II was over, Karl Popper moved to the United Kingdom and became a lecturer in London. This famous philosopher died at the age of 92 in 1994 and his ashes were buried in his homeland, Austria.

Falsificationism is a crucial element of the philosophy of science. It greatly contributes to what is the scientific method. That is, a theory or phenomenon can be shown to be false by experimentation or observation. In this way, the theory can be refined and improved using the results of the experiment that proved the initial theory inadequate.

Answer: President

The ageing Paul von Hindenburg was the President of Germany and the only man who stood in Hitler's way. So long as Hindenburg was President, and by extension possessed a presidential veto, Hitler could not implement his horrifying plans, namely the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Question' or 'Die Endlösung der Judenfrage'.

It must be pointed out that the Nazis hadn't developed their plan for the mass extermination of the Jews until 1941. During the Wannsee Conference of 1942, the Nazis refined their plans for implementing the Final Solution. Had Hindenburg survived a few years longer, history may have been a lot different.

However, Hindenburg died in 1934 and just over a year after Hitler's rise to the position of Chancellor, Hitler was now the Fuehrer.

Answer: Josef Mengele

Dr. Josef Mengele is remembered for his gruesome experiments carried out on the Jewish, Romany, homosexual and Jehovah's Witnesses populations of Auschwitz-Birkenau. His interest in twins was so deep, and disturbing, that it led him to attempt sewing pairs of them together in an attempt to make them Siamese twins.

The merit of such a 'scientific' experiment is extremely limited, if there is any merit at all, and it is certainly against the spirit of medical research.

Answer: Pope Benedict XVI

Pope Benedict XVI became the 265th Bishop of Rome and by extension holds the Papacy. The head of the Roman Catholic Church, Benedict XVI, is known for his controversial and conservative views on issues such as abortion, homosexuality and his belief that the spread of AIDS should be controlled by sexual abstinence.

Answer: High jump

Throughout the summer of 1936, when the Olympic Games came to Berlin, the state tried to have any evidence of anti-Semitism hidden from foreigners. Messages such as 'Achtung Juden!' sprayed over the windows of Jewish shops were removed and any signs which hinted at segregation were removed.

It is quite astonishing to think that just three years after the Olympic Games were in Berlin where nations were united through sport, there would be one of the most extensive wars in European and world history.