7 The 100 Most Influential World Leaders of All Time 7

1940 after the German occupation of France. He escaped
in 1942 and worked in the Résistance until France was lib-
erated in 1944. A founder of the Popular Republican
Movement (Mouvement Républicain Populaire; MRP), he
served as minister of finance (July–November 1946), pre-
mier (November 1947–July 1948 and August–September
1948), foreign minister (July 1948–December 1952), and
minister of justice (1955–56).
While serving as foreign minister, Schuman developed
the Schuman Plan (1950) to promote European economic
and military unity and a Franco-German rapprochement
to prevent another war between the two nations. The eco-
nomic aspects of his plan were realized in 1952 in the
European Coal and Steel Community, the six-nation
western European economic union, the first in a series
of economic agreements leading to the formation of the
European Economic Community (the Common Market)
in 1957. He served as president of the Assembly, the con-
sultative arm of the Common Market, from 1958 to 1960
and was an assembly member until February 1963.

Adolf Hitler

(b. April 20, 1889, Braunau am Inn, Austria—d. April 30, 1945,
Berlin, Ger.)

T

he leader of the National Socialist (Nazi) Party and
dictator of Germany from 1933 to 1945, Adolf Hitler
was responsible for both World War II and the Holocaust
and, for many people, became the incarnation of evil.

Early Life and Rise to Power

Hitler spent his early life in Linz, Austria, and in Vienna.
He was a lonely, frustrated artist and moved to Munich,