Halder, Franz (1884–1972) of the League of Nations in Geneva and—in a harbinger of coming serial wars of aggression in Africa, Asia, and Europe—poignantly warned that every isolated and small state was a possible future Ethiopia He returned to Ethiopia in 1941 during the East African campaign (1940–1941) He ruled for another 33 years, turning away from a reformist agenda in later life He was overthrown by a radical military junta in 1974 and brutally murdered while in confinement in 1975 HAINAN This large Chinese island was occupied by the Japanese in 1939 during the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) Tokyo maintained air and naval bases on Hainan to the end of World War II The garrison surrendered along with other Japanese forces in late 1945 HALDER, FRANZ (1884–1972) German general He served as a staff officer during World War I Moving into a position vacated by a purged anti-Nazi officer in 1938, he was made Chief of the General Staff He had sympathy for prewar proposals for a military coup to topple Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, but never acted His reasons were strategic rather than moral: he feared Hitler was leading Germany into a losing war However, his opinion was turned by Hitler’s bloodless successes in Austria and Czechoslovakia He then served Hitler with enthusiasm in planning the invasions of Poland in 1939 (FALL WEISS), Denmark and Norway in 1940 (WESERÜBUNG), and France and the Low Countries, also in 1940 (FALL GELB) He next planned Operation SEELÖWE, the invasion of Great Britain that was never carried out He became deeply concerned by the long-term strategic implications of Hitler’s Operation BARBAROSSA plan to invade the Soviet Union Yet, once again he did nothing except to serve his master’s wishes He was responsible for much of the operational planning that led to success in the field in the western Soviet Union over the summer and fall of 1941 But his arguments with Hitler continued: where Hitler saw successful encirclement of nearly 700,000 Red Army troops at Kiev as “the greatest victory in world history,” Halder worried that it was a colossal strategic mistake to have earlier shifted Panzer forces into Ukraine from Army Group Center, instead of continuing the drive toward Moscow Halder was singularly responsible for issuance to Wehrmacht commanders of illegal “special orders” prior to and during BARBAROSSA Those orders approved collective reprisals in response to partisan activity and authorized deliberate starvation and malign neglect of Soviet civilians in overrun rear areas In addition to his early planning successes in BARBAROSSA, he was also largely responsible for errors in the invasion plan, notably in the realm of fantastical logistical assumptions that played out adversely from September to December He then advised Hitler to continue offensive operations in front of Moscow into the first week of December 1941, long after the overstretched Wehrmacht should have halted and gone over to strict defense Halder was additionally responsible for excessive offensive optimism about the strategic meaning of operational advances and victories in the southern Soviet Union in the summer offensives of 1942 It was these strategic rather than moral disagreements with Hitler that led to Halder’s forced retirement 493