member_of_political_party walter rauff
East Germany , formally the German Democratic ___MASK23___ or GDR , was an Eastern Bloc state during the Cold War period . From 1949 to 1990 , it administered the region of Germany that was occupied by Soviet forces at the end of World War II  the Soviet Occupation Zone of the Potsdam Agreement , bounded on the east by the Oder  Neisse line . The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin , but did not include it ; as a result , West Berlin remained outside the jurisdiction of the GDR . The German Democratic ___MASK23___ was established in the Soviet Zone , while the Federal ___MASK23___ was established in the three western zones . East Germany was a satellite state of the Soviet ___MASK7___ . Soviet occupation authorities began transferring administrative responsibility to German communist leaders in 1948 , and the GDR began to function as a state on 7 October 1949 . Soviet forces , however , remained in the country throughout the Cold War . Until 1989 , the GDR was governed by the Socialist ___MASK17___ Party ( SED ), though other parties nominally participated in its alliance organisation , the National Front of Democratic Germany . The North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO '), also called the North Atlantic ___MASK30___ , is an intergovernmental ___MASK65___ alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949 . The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party . Three NATO members are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and are officially nuclear - weapon states : the United States , France and the United Kingdom . NATO ' s headquarters are located in Haren , Brussels , Belgium , where the Supreme Allied Commander also resides . Belgium is one of the 28 member states across North America and Europe , the newest of which , Albania and Croatia , joined in April 2009 . An additional 22 countries participate in NATO ' s Partnership for Peace program , with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes . The combined ___MASK65___ spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70 % of the global total . Members ' defence spending is supposed to amount to 2 % of GDP . Germany , officially the Federal ___MASK23___ of Germany , is a federal parliamentary ___MASK23___ in central - western Europe . It includes 16 constituent states , covers an area of , and has a largely temperate seasonal climate . With about 82 million inhabitants , Germany is the most populous member state of the European ___MASK7___ . After the United States , it is the second most popular immigration destination in the world . Germany ' s capital and largest metropolis is Berlin . Other major cities include Hamburg , Munich , Cologne , Frankfurt , Stuttgart and Düsseldorf . Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( 7 March 1904  4 June 1942 ) was a high - ranking German Nazi official during World War II , and a main architect of the Holocaust . He was an SS -" Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei " ( Senior Group Leader and Chief of Police ) as well as chief of the Reich Main Security Office ( including the Gestapo , Kripo , and SD ). He was also " Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor " ( Deputy / Acting Reich - Protector ) of Bohemia and Moravia , in what is now the Czech ___MASK23___ . Heydrich served as president of the International Criminal Police Commission ( ICPC ; later known as Interpol ) and chaired the January 1942 Wannsee Conference , which formalised plans for the Final Solution to the Jewish Question  the deportation and genocide of all Jews in German - occupied Europe . German  occupied Europe or Nazi Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were occupied by the ___MASK65___ forces of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 and 1945 and administered by the Nazi regime . The Cold War was a state of political and ___MASK65___ tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc ( the Soviet Union and its satellite states ) and powers in the Western Bloc ( the United States , its NATO allies and others ). Historians do not fully agree on the dates , but a common timeframe is the period ( the second half of the 20th century ) between 1947 , the year the Truman Doctrine ( a U . S . policy pledging to aid nations threatened by Soviet expansionism ) was announced , and 1991 , the year the Soviet Union collapsed . Sicherheitsdienst (" Security Service "), full title Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers - SS , or SD , was the intelligence agency of the SS and the ___MASK94___ in Nazi Germany . The organization was the first ___MASK94___ intelligence organization to be established and was considered a sister organization with the Gestapo , which the SS had infiltrated heavily after 1934 . Between 1933 and 1939 , the SD was administered as an independent SS office , after which it was transferred to the authority of the Reich Main Security Office (" Reichssicherheitshauptamt "; RSHA ), as one of its seven departments / offices . Its first director , Reinhard Heydrich , intended for the SD to bring every single individual within the Third Reich ' s reach under " continuous supervision ." The National Socialist German ___MASK1___ ( abbreviated NSDAP ), commonly referred to in English as the ___MASK94___ , was a political party in Germany that was active between 1920 and 1945 and practised the ideology of Nazism . Its precursor , the German ___MASK1___ (" Deutsche Arbeiterpartei "; DAP ), existed from 1919 to 1920 . Chile , officially the ___MASK23___ of Chile , is a South American country occupying a long , narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west . It borders Peru to the north , Bolivia to the northeast , Argentina to the east , and the Drake Passage in the far south . Chilean territory includes the Pacific islands of Juan Fernández , Salas y Gómez , Desventuradas , and Easter Island in Oceania . Chile also claims about of Antarctica , although all claims are suspended under the Antarctic Treaty . The Warsaw Pact , formally the Treaty of Friendship , Co - operation , and Mutual Assistance and sometimes , informally , WarPac . was a collective defense treaty among the Soviet ___MASK7___ and seven other Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe in existence during the Cold War . The Warsaw Pact was the ___MASK65___ complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance ( CoMEcon ), the regional economic organization for the communist states of Central and Eastern Europe . The Warsaw Pact was created in reaction to the integration of West Germany into NATO in 1955 per the London and Paris Conferences of 1954 , but it is also considered to have been motivated by Soviet desires to maintain control over ___MASK65___ forces in Central and Eastern Europe . Walter Rauff ( June 19 , 1906 -- May 14 , 1984 ) was an SS officer in Nazi Germany , attaining the grade of Colonel ( Standartenführer ) in June 1944 . From January 1938 he was an aide of Reinhard Heydrich firstly in the Sicherheitsdienst or SD , the SS security service , later in the Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA , the Reich Security Main Office , a department created by Himmler in 1939 grouping the Gestapo , SD and Kripo , the criminal police . Between 1958 and 1962 he worked for the Bundesnachrichtendienst , West Germany ' s intelligence service . His funeral in Santiago , Chile was attended by hundreds of old Nazis . Rauff is thought to have been responsible for nearly 100 , 000 deaths during the Second World War . He was instrumental in the creation of the Nazis '' `` mobile gas chamber '' . His victims included Communists , Jews , Roma and the physically and mentally ill . In the late 1970s and ' 80s , he was arguably the most wanted Nazi fugitive still alive . West Berlin was a city that existed in the period between the end of the Berlin Blockade on 12 May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990 as a political enclave surrounded by East Berlin and East Germany . It was east of the Inner German border and only accessible by land from West Germany by narrow rail and highway corridors . It consisted of the American , British , and French occupation sectors established in 1945 and shared economic , political , legal , and sporting systems with West Germany , but was not " de jure " part of it . It had a special and unique legal status because its administration was formally conducted by the Western Allies . East Berlin , " de jure " occupied and administered by the Soviet ___MASK7___ , was the " de facto " capital of East Germany . The Berlin Wall , built in 1961 , physically divided East and West Berlin until it fell in 1989 . Argentina , officially the Argentine ___MASK23___ , is a federal ___MASK23___ in the southern half of South America . Sharing the bulk of the Southern Cone with its neighbor Chile to the west , the country is also bordered by Bolivia and Paraguay to the north , Brazil to the northeast , Uruguay and the South Atlantic Ocean to the east , and the Drake Passage to the south . With a mainland area of , Argentina is the eighth - largest country in the world , the second largest in Latin America , and the largest Spanish - speaking one . The country is subdivided into twenty - three provinces ( singular " provincia ") and one autonomous city (" ciudad autónoma "), Buenos Aires , which is the federal capital of the nation as decided by Congress . The provinces and the capital have their own constitutions , but exist under a federal system . West Germany is the common English name for the Federal ___MASK23___ of Germany or FRG ( or " RFA ") in the period between its creation on 23 May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990 . During this Cold War era , NATO - aligned West Germany and Warsaw Pact - aligned East Germany were divided by the Inner German border . After 1961 West Berlin was physically separated from East Berlin as well as from East Germany by the Berlin Wall . This situation ended when East Germany was dissolved and its five states joined the ten states of the Federal ___MASK23___ of Germany along with the reunified city - state of Berlin . With the reunification of West and East Germany , the Federal ___MASK23___ of Germany , enlarged now to sixteen states , became known simply as " Germany ". This period is also referred to as the Bonn ___MASK23___ (" Bonner Republik ") by historians , alluding to the interwar Weimar ___MASK23___ and the post - reunification Berlin ___MASK23___ . The Gestapo , abbreviation of Geheime Staatspolizei , or the Secret State Police , was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and German - occupied Europe . Easter Island is a Chilean island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean , at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle . Easter Island is famous for its 887 extant monumental statues , called " moai ", created by the early Rapa Nui people . In 1995 , UNESCO named Easter Island a World ___MASK20___ Site , with much of the island protected within Rapa Nui National Park . The Reich Main Security Office ( German : " Reichssicherheitshauptamt " or RSHA ) was an organization subordinate to Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacities as " Chef der Deutschen Polizei " ( Chief of German Police ) and " Reichsführer - SS ", the head of the ___MASK94___ ' s " Schutzstaffel " ( SS ). The organization ' s stated duty was to fight all " enemies of the Reich " inside and outside the borders of Nazi Germany . Peru , officially the ___MASK23___ of Peru , is a country in western South America . It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia , in the east by Brazil , in the southeast by Bolivia , in the south by Chile , and in the west by the Pacific Ocean . Peru is an extremely biodiverse country with habitats ranging from the arid plains of the Pacific coastal region in the west to the peaks of the Andes mountains vertically extending from the north to the southeast of the country to the tropical Amazon Basin rainforest in the east with the Amazon river . Weimar ___MASK23___ is an unofficial , historical designation for the German state between 1919 and 1933 . The name derives from the city of Weimar , where its constitutional assembly first took place . The official name of the state was still " Deutsches Reich "; it had remained unchanged since 1871 . In English the country was usually known simply as Germany . A national assembly was convened in Weimar , where a new constitution for the " Deutsches Reich " was written , and adopted on 11 August 1919 . In its fourteen years , the Weimar ___MASK23___ faced numerous problems , including hyperinflation , political extremism ( with paramilitaries  both left - and right - wing ); and contentious relationships with the victors of the First World War . The people of Germany blamed the Weimar ___MASK23___ rather than their wartime leaders for the country ' s defeat and for the humiliating terms of the Treaty of Versailles . However , the Weimar ___MASK23___ government successfully reformed the currency , unified tax policies , and organized the railway system . Weimar Germany eliminated most of the requirements of the Treaty of Versailles ; it never completely met its disarmament requirements , and eventually paid only a small portion of the war reparations ( by twice restructuring its debt through the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan ). Under the Locarno Treaties , Germany accepted the western borders of the ___MASK23___ , but continued to dispute the Eastern border . Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945 , when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the ___MASK94___ ( NSDAP ). Under Hitler ' s rule , Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the ___MASK94___ took totalitarian control over nearly all aspects of life . The official name of the state was " Deutsches Reich " from 1933 to 1943 and " Großdeutsches Reich " (" Greater German Reich ") from 1943 to 1945 . The period is also known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period ( abbreviated as " NS - Zeit "). The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945 , ending World War II in Europe . Berlin is the capital and the largest city of Germany as well as one of its constituent 16 states . With a population of approximately 3 . 5 million people , Berlin is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European ___MASK7___ . Located in northeastern Germany on the banks of rivers Spree and Havel , it is the centre of the Berlin - Brandenburg Metropolitan Region , which has about 6 million residents from more than 180 nations . Due to its location in the European Plain , Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate . Around one - third of the city ' s area is composed of forests , parks , gardens , rivers and lakes . World War II ( often abbreviated to WWII or WW2 ), also known as the Second World War , was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945 , although related conflicts began earlier . It involved the vast majority of the world ' s nations  including all of the great powers  eventually forming two opposing ___MASK65___ alliances : the Allies and the Axis . It was the most widespread war in history , and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries . In a state of " total war ", the major participants threw their entire economic , industrial , and scientific capabilities behind the war effort , erasing the distinction between civilian and ___MASK65___ resources . Marked by mass deaths of civilians , including the Holocaust ( in which approximately 11 million people were killed ) and the strategic bombing of industrial and population centres ( in which approximately one million were killed , and which included the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ), it resulted in an estimated 50 million to 85 million fatalities . These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history . The inner German border ( or " deutsch - deutsche Grenze "; initially also " Zonengrenze ") was the border between the German Democratic ___MASK23___ ( GDR , East Germany ) and the Federal ___MASK23___ of Germany ( FRG , West Germany ) from 1949 to 1990 . Not including the similar but physically separate Berlin Wall , the border was long and ran from the Baltic Sea to Czechoslovakia . An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection , analysis , and exploitation of information and intelligence in support of law enforcement , national security , ___MASK65___ , and foreign policy objectives . The Czech ___MASK23___ , also known by the short name Czechia , is a nation state in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west , Austria to the south , Slovakia to the east and Poland to the northeast . The Czech ___MASK23___ covers an area of with mostly temperate continental climate and oceanic climate . It is a unitary parliamentary ___MASK23___ , has 10 . 5 million inhabitants and the capital and largest city is Prague , with over 1 . 2 million residents . The Czech ___MASK23___ includes the historical territories of Bohemia , Moravia , and Czech Silesia . Adolf Hitler ( 20 April 1889  30 April 1945 ) was a German politician who was the leader of the ___MASK94___ (" Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei "; NSDAP ), Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 , and Führer (" Leader ") of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945 . As dictator of the German Reich , he initiated World War II in Europe with the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and was central to the Holocaust . The Berlin Wall was a barrier that divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989 . Constructed by the German Democratic ___MASK23___ ( GDR , East Germany ), starting on 13 August 1961 , the Wall completely cut off ( by land ) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989 . Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in 1992 . The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls , which circumscribed a wide area ( later known as the " death strip ") that contained anti - vehicle trenches , " fakir beds " and other defenses . The Eastern Bloc claimed that the Wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the " will of the people " in building a socialist state in East Germany . In practice , the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that had marked East Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post - World War II period . The German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic ___MASK23___ ( GDR / East Germany ) joined the Federal ___MASK23___ of Germany ( FRG / West Germany ) to form the reunited nation of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city , as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23 . The end of the unification process is officially referred to as German ___MASK17___ , celebrated on 3 October ( German ___MASK17___ Day ). Following German reunification , Berlin was once again designated as the capital of united Germany .