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Eckener, Hugo

(Encyclopedia)Eckener, Hugo, 1868–1954, German airship designer and pilot, Ph.D. Univ. of Leipzig, 1892. As a journalist he covered early flights of Zeppelin's first rigid airships. He joined (1908) Zeppelin's co...

Deutsches Theater

(Encyclopedia)Deutsches Theater doiˈchəs tāäˈtər [key], German private theater organization founded in 1883. Under its first director, Adolph L'Arronge, the Deutsches merged with the Freie Bühne (Otto Brahm,...

Pan-Germanism

(Encyclopedia)Pan-Germanism, German nationalist doctrine aiming at the union of all German-speaking peoples under German rule. Pan-Germanists considered that not only the German groups in neighboring countries, suc...

Pertini, Sandro

(Encyclopedia)Pertini, Sandro (Alessandro Pertini), 1896–1990, Italian political leader and journalist, president of Italy (1978–1985). He served in World War I, then became a founding member of the Socialist p...

Wirth, Karl Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Wirth, Karl Joseph kärl yōˈzĕf vĭrt [key], 1879–1956, German statesman. A leader of the Catholic Center party, he succeeded (1920) Matthias Erzberger as minister of finance. In 1921, Wirth beca...

Taylor, Alan John Percivale

(Encyclopedia)Taylor, Alan John Percivale, 1906–90, English historian, primarily interested in diplomatic and Central European history. Educated at Oxford, he became a fellow of Magdalen College in 1938. He appea...

Spee, Maximilian, Graf von

(Encyclopedia)Spee, Maximilian, Graf von mäkˌsēmēˈlyän gräf fən shpā [key], 1861–1914, German admiral. At the start of World War I he commanded a squadron in East Asia. In Nov., 1914, he met and defeated...

small arms

(Encyclopedia)small arms, firearms designed primarily to be carried and fired by one person and, generally, held in the hands, as distinguished from heavy arms, or artillery. Automatic small arms were develope...

torpedo , in naval warfare

(Encyclopedia)torpedo, in naval warfare, a self-propelled submarine projectile loaded with explosives, used for the destruction of enemy ships. Although there were attempts at subsurface warfare in the 16th and 17t...

McCrae, John

(Encyclopedia)McCrae, John məkrāˈ [key], 1872–1918, Canadian physician and poet. His famous poem “In Flanders Fields,” written under fire during World War I, was published anonymously in Punch in 1915 and ...