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Nazi Germany
1
Nazi Germany
Greater German Reich
Großdeutsches Reich
↓
↓
1933–1945
Flag
Insignia
Motto
Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer
"One People, one Reich, one Leader"
Anthem
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Das Lied der Deutschen (official)
First stanza of
Das Lied der Deutschen
followed by Horst-Wessel-Lied
Europe at the height of German expansion, 1941–1942
[1]
Greater Germany
Areas under German and/or Axis occupation
[1]
[1]
German allies, co-belligerents, and puppet states
Soviet Union (Allied-held)
Allied-held areas other than Soviet Union
Neutral countries
Capital
Berlin
Language(s)
German
Government
Nazi single-party state
Totalitarian dictatorship
President / Führer
Nazi Germany
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- 1933–1934
Paul von Hindenburg
- 1934–1945
Adolf Hitler
- 1945
Karl Dönitz
[2]
Chancellor
- 1933–1945
Adolf Hitler
- 1945
Joseph Goebbels
Legislature
Reichstag
- State council
Reichsrat
Historical era
Interwar period / WWII
- Machtergreifung
30 January 1933
- Gleichschaltung
27 February 1933
- Anschluss
12 March 1938
- World War II
1 September 1939
- Death of Adolf Hitler
30 April 1945
- Surrender of Germany
8 May 1945
[3]
[3]
Area
- 1941 (Großdeutschland)
[4]
696,265 km2 (268,829 sq mi)
Population
- 1941 (Großdeutschland) est.
90,030,775
Density
129.3 /km2 (334.9 /sq mi)
Currency
Reichsmark (ℛℳ)
Preceded by
Weimar Republic
Saar (League of Nations)
Federal State of Austria
Czechoslovak Republic
Klaipėda Region
Free City of Danzig
Second Polish Republic
Ukrainian National Government
Kingdom of Italy
Eupen-Malmedy
Luxembourg
Alsace-Lorraine
Drava Banovina
Succeeded by
Nazi Germany
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Flensburg Government
Allied-occupied Germany
Allied-occupied Austria
Third Republic of Czechoslovakia
Republic of Poland
Alsace-Lorraine
Eupen-Malmedy
Luxembourg
Kingdom of Italy
Kaliningrad Oblast
Saar protectorate
Democratic Federal Yugoslavia
Elten and Selfkant
Today part of
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Germany
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Austria
Belgium
Czech Republic
France
Belarus
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Italy
Lithuania
Luxembourg
•
•
•
Monaco
Netherlands
Poland
•
•
Russia
Slovenia
•
•
Ukraine
Slovakia
Nazi Germany, also known as the Third Reich, is the common name for Germany when it was a totalitarian state
ruled by Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). On 30 January 1933 Hitler
became Chancellor of Germany, quickly eliminating all opposition to rule as sole leader. The state idolized Hitler as
its Führer ("leader"), centralizing all power in his hands. Historians have emphasized the hypnotic effect of his
rhetoric on large audiences, and of his eyes in small groups. Kessel writes, "Overwhelmingly...Germans speak with
mystification of Hitler's 'hypnotic' appeal..."[1] Under the "leader principle", the Führer's word was above all other
laws. Top officials reported to Hitler and followed his policies, but they had considerable autonomy. The
government was not a coordinated, cooperating body, but rather a collection of factions struggling to amass power
and gain favor with the Führer.[2] In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazi government restored prosperity and
ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending and a mixed economy of free-market and central-planning
practices.[3] Extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of the Autobahns. The return to
prosperity gave the regime enormous popularity; the suppression of all opposition made Hitler's rule mostly
unchallenged.
Racism, especially antisemitism, was a main tenet of society in Nazi Germany. The Gestapo (secret state police) and
SS under Heinrich Himmler destroyed the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition, and persecuted and murdered
Jews and other "undesirables". It was believed that the Germanic peoples—who were also referred to as the Nordic
Nazi Germany
race—were the purest representation of the Aryan race, and were therefore the master race. Education focused on
racial biology, population policy, and physical fitness. Membership in the Hitler Youth organization became
compulsory. The number of women enrolled in post-secondary education plummeted, and career opportunities were
curtailed. Calling women's rights a "product of the Jewish intellect," the Nazis practiced what they called
"emancipation from emancipation."[4] Entertainment and tourism were organized via the Strength Through Joy
program. The government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific forms of art and discouraging or banning
others. The Nazis mounted the infamous Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition in 1937.[5] Propaganda minister
Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, and Hitler's hypnotizing oratory to control public
opinion.[6] The 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage.
Germany made increasingly aggressive demands, threatening war if they were not met. Britain and France responded
with appeasement, hoping Hitler would finally be satisfied.[7] Austria was annexed in 1938, and the Sudetenland was
taken via the Munich Agreement in 1938, with the rest of Czechoslovakia taken over in 1939. Hitler made a pact
with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939, starting World War II. In alliance with Benito Mussolini's
Italy, Germany conquered France and most of Europe by 1940, and threatened its remaining major foe: Great
Britain. Reich Commissariats took brutal control of conquered areas, and a German administration termed the
General Government was established in Poland. Concentration camps, established as early as 1933, were used to
hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime. The number of camps quadrupled between 1939 and 1942 to
300+, as slave-laborers from across Europe, Jews, political prisoners, criminals, homosexuals, gypsies, the mentally
ill and others were imprisoned. The system that began as an instrument of political oppression culminated in the
mass genocide of Jews and other minorities in The Holocaust.
Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide turned against the Third Reich in the major
military defeats of the Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Kursk in 1943. The Soviet counter-attacks became the
largest land battles in history. Large-scale systematic bombing of all major German cities, rail lines and oil plants
escalated in 1944, shutting down the Luftwaffe (German Air Force). Germany was overrun in 1945 by the Soviets
from the east and the Allies from the west. The victorious Allies initiated a policy of denazification and put the
surviving Nazi leadership on trial for war crimes at the Nuremberg Trials.
Name
The official name of the state was the Deutsches Reich ("German Reich") from 1933 to 1943, and the Großdeutsches
Reich ("Greater German Reich") from 1943 to 1945. The name Deutsches Reich is usually translated into English as
"German Empire" or "German Reich".[8] The term "Reich" does not always connote an empire; the official name of
Germany remained "Deutsches Reich" during the Weimar period.[9]
The most popular English terms are "Nazi Germany" and "Third Reich." The latter was adopted by the Nazis and
first used in a 1923 novel by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck,[10] that counted the medieval Holy Roman Empire
(962–1806) as the first and the German Empire (1871–1918) as the second. The Nazis ignored the previous Weimar
Republic (1918–1933), which the Nazis denounced as a historical aberration, contemptuously referring to it as "the
System".[11] Historiographically, Germans today refer to the period as Zeit des Nationalsozialismus or the
abbreviated NS-Zeit ("National Socialist period"). A formal term frequently used in political speech or legal context
is Nationalsozialistische Gewaltherrschaft (referring more specifically to the Nazi terror regime).
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Nazi Germany
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History
Background
Further information: Adolf Hitler's rise to power
The Nazi movement arose among angry young veterans in the early 1920s; they rejected the Treaty of Versailles
(1919), the Weimar republic, and democracy generally. They called for a revival of the Aryan race and blamed the
Jews for Germany's troubles. Highly effective Nazi propaganda effectively used the "Stab-in-the-back legend" to
explain the German military defeat in 1918—that is that Jews, Communists and other subversives in Berlin were to
blame. The Nazi movement was small until the onset of the 1929 global Great Depression. The subsequent fallout
intensified the reaction against the modernity and liberalism of the Weimar Republic,[12]. Simultaneously, on the
left, the Communist Party of Germany, controlled by Moscow, gained strength as the middle was squeezed. Many
Germans decided the Nazi Party was capable of restoring order, quelling civil unrest, and restoring Germany's
international reputation.[12]
The Nazis promised a strong authoritarian government, civic peace, radical economic policies (including full
employment), increased Lebensraum ("living space") for Germanic peoples, formation of a national community
based on race, and racial cleansing via the active suppression of Jews.[13] The Nazis promised national and cultural
renewal based upon the Völkisch movement, traditionalism, proposed rearmament, repudiation of reparations, and
reclamation of territory lost to the Treaty of Versailles. After the federal election of 1932, the Nazis were the largest
party in the Reichstag, holding 230 seats.[14]
Nazi seizure of power
Further information: Machtergreifung
On 30 January 1933, President Hindenburg, under pressure from Franz von
Papen, appointed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany. This event is known as the
Machtergreifung ("seizure of power"). By becoming the Vice Chancellor and
keeping the Nazis a cabinet minority, von Papen expected to be able to control
Hitler. Although the Nazis had won the greatest share of the popular vote in the
two Reichstag general elections of 1932, they did not have a majority, so Hitler
led a short-lived coalition government formed by the NSDAP and the German
National People's Party (DNVP).[15]
Within a few months, the new government installed a single party dictatorship in
Germany with legal measures establishing a coordinated central government,
(see Gleichschaltung). On the night of 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building
was set afire; a Dutch communist was found guilty. The Nazis claimed that the
Adolf Hitler, Chancellor of
Germany, January 1933
arson was a signal for a communist uprising and thousands of communist party
members were arrested, the party offices raided and all KPD publications
banned. The Nazis imprisoned many in the Dachau concentration camp. The Reichstag Fire Decree, imposed on 28
February 1933, rescinded most German civil liberties to suppress their opponents. The 'Fire Decree' was the second
enactment that allowed the Nazi administration to restrict civil liberties. The first was a rule that forbade Germans
from 'insulting the flag' and this was used consistently to repress any kind of opposition.[16]
In March 1933, with the Enabling Act passing by 444–94 (the remaining Social Democrats), the Reichstag changed
the Weimar Constitution to allow Hitler's government to pass laws without parliamentary debate for a four-year
period, even such deviating from other articles in the constitution (the Act, forming the legal basis for the regime,
was subsequently renewed by Hitler's government in 1937 and 1941). Forthwith, throughout 1934, the Nazi Party
ruthlessly eliminated all political opposition. The Enabling Act already had banned the Communists (KPD), the
Nazi Germany
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Social Democrats (SPD) were later dissolved in June, and in the June–July period, the Nationalists (DNVP), the
People's Party (DVP) and the German State Party (DStP) were likewise obliged to disband. Former party members
were urged to join the Nazi Party or else leave politics. Moreover, at the urging of Franz von Papen, the remaining
Catholic Centre Party disbanded on 5 July 1933 after obtaining Nazi guarantees for Catholic religious education and
youth groups. On 14 July 1933, Germany became a de facto single-party state, as the founding of new parties was
banned. Further elections in late 1933, 1936 and 1938 were entirely Nazi-controlled and only saw the Nazis and a
minor number of independent "guests" (such as Hugenberg) elected for the rubber-stamp legislature.
The Nazi regime abolished the symbols of the Weimar Republic, including
the black-red-gold tricolor flag, and adopted reworked imperial symbolism
representing the dual nature of Germany's third empire. The previous,
imperial black-white-red tricolor was restored as one of Germany's two
official national flags; the second was the swastika flag of the Nazi party,
which became the sole national German flag in 1935. The Nazi anthem
"Horst-Wessel-Lied" ("Horst Wessel Song") became a second national
anthem.[17]
On 30 January 1934, Chancellor Hitler formally centralized government
power to himself with the Act to Rebuild the Reich, by disbanding Länder
(federal state) parliaments and transferring states' powers and administration
to the Berlin central government. The centralization began soon after the
March 1933 Enabling Act promulgation, when state governments were
replaced with Reich governors. Local government also was deposed; Reich
governors appointed mayors of cities and towns with populaces of fewer than
100,000; the Interior Minister appointed the mayors of cities with populaces
greater than 100,000; and, in the cases of Berlin and Hamburg (and Vienna in
1938), Hitler had personal discretion to appoint their mayors.
Flag of Nazi Germany, used jointly with
the swastika flag, 1933–35
Sole national flag of Nazi Germany,
1935–45
By spring of 1934, only the army remained independent of government control; traditionally, it was separate from
the national government, a discrete entity. Ernst Röhm, leader of the Nazi paramilitary Sturmabteilung (SA, "Storm
Detachment"), which had several million members, intended to assume command of the Reichswehr and absorb it
into its ranks.[18] To complement the "nationalist revolution", Röhm favored a "second revolution", which would tear
down industrialists, big business, the Junker aristocracy, and Prussian control of the military.[19] Matters came to a
head in June 1934 when President Hindenburg informed Hitler that if he didn't move to curb the SA and would soon
dissolve the Government and declare martial law.[20]
At the risk of appearing to talk nonsense I tell you that the National Socialist movement will go on for 1,000
years! ... Don't forget how people laughed at me 15 years ago when I declared that one day I would govern
Germany. They laugh now, just as foolishly, when I declare that I shall remain in power!
— Adolf Hitler to a British correspondent in Berlin, June 1934[21]
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Convinced by Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Göring that a plot was afoot to
depose him, Hitler ordered the Schutzstaffel (SS) and the Gestapo to assassinate
his political enemies both in and outside the Nazi Party with the "Night of the
Long Knives". The purges of Ernst Röhm, his SA cohort, the Strasserist,
left-wing Nazis, and other political enemies lasted from 30 June to 2 July 1934,
and resulted in up to 200 deaths.[22] While some Germans were shocked by the
killing, others admired Hitler's decisive actions to restore order.[23]
Upon the death of Hindenburg, on 2 August 1934, the Nazi-controlled Reichstag
consolidated the offices of Reichspräsident (Reich President) and Reichskanzler
(Reich Chancellor), and reinstalled Hitler as Führer und Reichskanzler (Leader
and Reich Chancellor). After the "Night of the Long Knives" and Hindenburg's
death, the Reichswehr was prepared to accept Hitler's leadership. As Hitler had
announced plans to rearm and increase the size of the Reichswehr, the agreement
March at Reichsparteitag,
Nuremberg, 1935
of the generals was unsurprising. The assassination of Röhm and the SA leaders
consolidated the Reichswehr as the sole armed force of the Reich, and the
Führer's promises of military expansion guaranteed him military loyalty. Hindenburg's death facilitated transferring
the German soldiers' oath of allegiance from the Reich of the Weimar Constitution to the Führer Adolf Hitler.[24]
Shortly afterwards, the Nazis ended the official NSDAP–DNVP government alliance and began introducing Nazism
and Nazi symbolism to public and private German life; textbooks were revised, or rewritten to promote a racial
version of the Pan-German doctrine of Großdeutschland (Greater Germany) to be established by the Nazi
Herrenvolk; teachers who opposed curricular Nazification were dismissed. Furthermore, to coerce popular obedience
to the state, the Nazis established the Gestapo (secret state police), established independent of civil authority. The
Gestapo controlled the German populace with some 100,000 spies and informers, and thereby were positioned to
conduct surveillance of anti-Nazi criticism and dissent.
The majority of the German people were relieved that the conflicts and street fighting of the Weimar era had ended,
and were deluged in a barrage of propaganda orchestrated by Joseph Goebbels, which promised peace and plenty for
all in a united, Marxist-free country without the restraints of the Versailles Treaty.[25] The first concentration camp
for political prisoners was opened at Dachau near Munich in 1933 and "between 1933 and 1945, more than 3 million
Germans had been in concentration camps, or prison, for political reasons".[26][27][28] "Tens of thousands of Germans
were killed for one or another form of resistance. Between 1933 and 1945, Sondergerichte (Nazi "special courts")
sentenced some 12,000 Germans to death, court-martial ordered the execution of 25,000 German soldiers on charges
of cowardice, while civil courts sentenced 40,000 Germans. Many of these Germans were part of the government,
civil, or military service, a circumstance which enabled them to engage in subversion and conspiracy, while
involved, marginally or significantly, in the government's policies."[29]
Re-militarization of the Rhineland
Germany pulled out of the League of Nations in 1933. This move was one of Hitler's first attempts to systematically
undermine and nullify the provisions of the Versailles Treaty. Hitler justified leaving the League of Nations on the
grounds that the disarmament clauses were designed and applicable only to Germany, an unfair exclusion. In January
1935, the Saarland voted to become part of Germany. The region had been placed under League of Nations
supervision for 15 years and the decision was greeted as a great victory for the new Germany. In March 1935 Hitler
announced that the Reichswehr would be increased to 550,000 men and that there would be a German Air Force.[30]
When Britain agreed that the Germans would be allowed to build a naval fleet, the Treaty became little more than a
piece of paper. The signees were ready, in the name of peace, to negotiate away on a bilateral basis the terms that
Germany had agreed to in 1919.
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Hitler's next attempt to undermine the Versailles Treaty came in March 1936. Italian dictator Mussolini, Hitler's
colleague and at the time an object of admiration, invaded Ethiopia, leading to mild protests by the British and
French governments. In the wake of this crisis, Hitler ordered the Reichswehr to march into the demilitarised zone in
the Rhineland, with the proviso that they should withdraw if the French mobilised in response. The French
government was in its usual state of internal bickering and Britain had no interest in stopping the Reichswehr, let
alone the means. The result was a significant symbolic victory for Hitler. He had tested the resolve of his opponents
and they had been found lacking. Not that there was anything they could have done, for French military strategy was
dictated by the existence of the Maginot Line, behind which their army was to remain, come what may, and British
politicians regarded the Rhineland as Germany's own backyard. Hitler then held an election in which he received an
overwhelming vote of support and his reputation as a vigorous and determined leader was growing fast.[31] The
following year was relatively quiet on the foreign affairs front. The Spanish Civil War occupied the headlines in
Europe, which was a useful trial ground for the growing Luftwaffe (German Air Force).
Anschluss with Austria
In February 1938, Hitler called the Austrian Chancellor Kurt
Schuschnigg to a meeting at the Berghof at which he harangued
Schussnigg on the need for Germans to secure their frontiers. To
forestall Hitler and to preserve Austria's independence, Schuschnigg
scheduled a plebiscite on the issue for 13 March, but Hitler demanded
that it be canceled. On 11 March, Hitler sent an ultimatum to
Schuschnigg, demanding that he hand over all power to the Austrian
Nazis or face an invasion. On 12 March the Wehrmacht entered
Austria, to be greeted with enthusiasm by the Austrians.[32]
The German minority in Czechoslovakia
welcome Nazi troops in October 1938.
Occupation of Czechoslovakia
Further information: Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
Hitler told the leader of the Sudeten German Party, Konrad Henlein, to make a number of unacceptable demands to
the Czechoslovak government. Mussolini insisted that Hitler meet the British and French prime ministers to discuss
the Czechoslovak crisis. Hitler demanded the immediate annexation of the German areas (called "Sudetenland").
Two more meetings followed, in the second of which, the infamous "Munich Agreement" was signed, forcing the
Czechoslovak government to accept the annexation, but having no part in the negotiations.
The Munich Agreement has had a highly controversial reception
among historians and political scientists. One interpretation sees it as a
cowardly "Appeasement" – an unwise and unnecessarily capitulation
to vehement threats. Other scholars argue that risking war at that stage
was unwise because France and Britain had neither the weapons nor a
coherent strategy to defeat Germany in 1938. Chamberlain was greeted
as a hero when he landed in London bringing, he said, "peace for our
time." The agreement lasted six months before Hitler seized the rest of
Announcement of the execution of Czechs, who
Czech
territory in March 1939.[33] Hitler's next move was to call for
improved radio receivers to listen to foreign
broadcasts.
adjustments to the borders of Poland. In the House of Commons,
Chamberlain warned that any further attempts by Hitler to change the
status quo would lead to war. In effect, this declaration guaranteed help to Poland and made the outbreak of war
inevitable. The Wehrmacht began to prepare for an invasion of Poland, while the German foreign office made
Nazi Germany
attempts to keep Britain out of the conflict. On 23 May 1939, Hitler ordered his generals to prepare for the attack on
Poland.[34] This has been described as a typical Hitler 'bluff' by Taylor[35] but the dynamics of mobilisation probably
belie this position, for it takes several months to prepare an army for such an attack and the war began with the
invasion of Poland on 1 September, just as Hitler had ordered. Hitler was still uncertain what Stalin would do when
Poland was attacked. The Russian regime might be the 'anti-christ' (Kershaw) to the Nazis but it was a crucial
element in the invasion of Poland. Britain and France had sent envoys to Moscow with the aim of tying Stalin into a
pact. Molotov, Stalin's foreign minister, visited Berlin in July 1939 and elegant hints were dropped about the need
for an agreement between Berlin and Moscow. But Stalin was in no hurry.
On 20 August, Hitler telegraphed Stalin with an offer of an agreement to be signed on 22 or 23 August. Ribbentrop,
the German foreign minister, flew to Moscow and an agreement was signed between Russia and Germany that made
the second world war inevitable. Hitler was delighted. He knew, he told his entourage, that Britain and France would
do nothing. Their leaders were worms, he said. The compromise over Sudetenland still rankled.[36] The agreement
signed in Moscow provided for peace for a period of ten years between the two countries. There was a secret
protocol attached in which Poland was divided up 'in the event of a conflict' between Russia and Germany. Russia
was promised the Baltic countries, and in return Hitler could go ahead and invade Poland.
World War II
Outbreak of war
The "Danzig crisis" peaked in early 1939,
around the time that reports of controversy
in the Free City of Danzig increased. The
United Kingdom "guaranteed" to defend
Poland's territorial integrity and the Poles
rejected a series of offers by Nazi Germany
regarding both the Free City of Danzig and
the Polish Corridor. Then, the Germans
broke off diplomatic relations. Hitler had
learned that the Soviet Union was willing to
sign a non-aggression pact with Germany
and would support an attack on Poland.
Germany invaded Poland on 1 September
1939 and two days later, the United
Kingdom and France declared war on
Germany. World War II was underway, but
Poland fell quickly, as the Soviets attacked
it on 17 September. The United Kingdom
Animated map showing German and Axis allies' conquests in Europe throughout
proceeded to bomb Wilhelmshaven,
World War II
[37]
[38]
Cuxhaven,
Heligoland
and other
areas. Still, aside from battles at sea, no
other activity occurred. Thus, the war became known as "the Phoney War".
The year 1940 began with little more than the UK dropping propaganda leaflets over Prague and Vienna[39] but a
German attack on the British High Seas fleet was followed by the British bombing the port city of Sylt.[40] After the
Altmark Incident off the coast of Norway and the discovery of the United Kingdom's plans to encircle Germany,
Hitler sent troops into Denmark and Norway. This safeguarded iron ore supplies from Sweden through coastal
waters. Shortly thereafter, the British and French landed in Mid- and North Norway, but the Germans de facto
9
Nazi Germany
10
defeated these forces in the ensuing Norwegian Campaign.
Conquest of Europe
In May 1940, the Phoney War ended. Against the judgment of his
advisors, Hitler ordered an attack on France through the Low
Countries. The Battle of France ended with an overwhelming German
victory. However, with the British refusing Hitler's offer of peace, the
war continued. Germany and Britain continued to fight at sea and in
the air. The British bombed Berlin and the German leader ordered
attacks on British cities. Britain was bombed heavily during The Blitz.
This change in targeting priority interfered with the Luftwaffe's
German soldiers marching past the Arc de
objective of achieving the air superiority over Britain necessary for an
Triomphe, 14 June 1940
invasion and allowed British air defenses to rebuild their strength and
continue the fight. The Germans lost the Battle of Britain in fall 1940,
but then turned to planning the invasion of the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa, June 1941. Germany and its
allies invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. Hitler hoped that rapid success in the Soviet Union would bring
Britain to the negotiating table.
Operation Barbarossa was supposed to begin earlier, however, failed Italian ventures in North Africa and the
Balkans caused Hitler concern. In February 1941, the German Afrika Korps was sent to Libya to aid the Italians and
hold the British Commonwealth forces from British-held Egypt. As the North African Campaign continued, the
Afrika Korps regained lost Italian territory, pushed the British back across the desert and advanced into Egypt. In
April, the Germans launched the invasion of Yugoslavia to aid friendly forces and restore control in the Balkans.
This was followed by the Battle of Greece, again to bail out the Italians, and the Battle of Crete. Because of the
diversions in North Africa and the Balkans, the Germans were not able to launch Barbarossa until late in June.
Moreover, men and material were diverted to create the "fortified Europe" that Hitler wanted before Germany
focused its attention on the East.
Nevertheless, Barbarossa began with great success. Only Hitler
worried that the German Army and its allies were not advancing into
the Soviet Union fast enough. By December 1941, the Germans and
their allies were at the gates of Moscow; to the north, troops had
reached Leningrad and surrounded the city.[41] Meanwhile, Germany
and its allies controlled almost all of mainland Europe, with the
exception of neutral Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, and
Turkey.
Citizens of Leningrad during the 872-day siege of
On 11 December 1941, four days after the Japanese bombed Pearl
Leningrad, in which about 1 million civilians
died.
Harbor, Nazi Germany declared war on the United States. Not only
was this a chance for Germany to strengthen its ties with Japan, but
after months of anti-German hysteria in the American media and Lend-Lease aid to Britain, the leaking of Rainbow
Five and the foreboding content of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Pearl Harbor speech, Hitler concluded that the
US could not be kept neutral. Moreover, Germany's policy of appeasement, designed to keep the US out of the war,
was a burden on Germany's war effort. Germany had refrained from attacking American convoys, even if they were
bound for the United Kingdom or the Soviet Union. By contrast, after Germany declared war on the US, the German
navy began unrestricted submarine warfare, using U-boats to attack ships without warning.
The goal of Germany's navy, the Kriegsmarine, was to cut off Britain's supply line. Under these circumstances, one
of the most famous naval battles in history took place, with the German battleship Bismarck, Germany's largest and
Nazi Germany
most powerful warship, attempting to break out into the Atlantic and raid supply ships heading for Britain. Bismarck
was sunk – but not before sending Britain's largest warship, the battlecruiser HMS Hood, to the depths of the ocean.
German U-boats were more successful than surface raiders like Bismarck. However, Germany failed to make
submarine production a top priority early on and by the time it did, the British and their allies were developing the
technology and strategies to neutralize it. Furthermore, in spite of the submarines' early success in 1941 and 1942,
material shortages in Britain failed to fall to the targeted amount: World War I levels. The Allied victory in the Battle
of the Atlantic was achieved at a huge cost: between 1939 and 1945, 3,500 Allied ships were sunk (gross tonnage
14.5 million) at a cost of 783 German U-boats.[42]
Persecution and extermination campaigns
The persecution of racial, ethnic, and social minorities and
"undesirables" intensified in Germany and the occupied countries
during World War II. From 1941, Jews were required to wear a yellow
badge in public; most were kept in walled ghettos, where they
remained isolated from the general populace. In January 1942, the
Wannsee Conference, headed by Reinhard Heydrich (direct
subordinate of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler), redacted the plans
for the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" (Endlösung der
Judenfrage).
During the Nazi regime some six million Jews, and a
Men forced to dig their own graves by a subunit
of Einsatzgruppe A troops. Šiauliai, Lithuania,
sizeable number of Romani people, Jehovah's Witnesses, Poles and
July 1941
other Slavs, Soviet POWs, people with mental and/or physical
disabilities, homosexuals, and members of the political and religious
opposition were massacred.[43] Dwarfs, or little people, were persecuted by the Nazis, as well.[44] Altogether, more
than ten million people were put into forced labour. In 1978, the term "Holocaust" came into general use to describe
this genocide in English. It is called the Shoah in Hebrew.
In addition to eliminating the Jews, the Nazis also planned the ethnic cleansing of some 30–45 million Slavs (Poles,
Russians, Ukrainians, etc.). This strategy was to make way for 10 million German settlers.[45] It was the Generalplan
Ost (General Plan East) for the conquest, ethnic cleansing, and exploitation of the populaces of the captured
territories. The food that went to Russians would be diverted to the German army and German civilians. The
Russians would starve and their cities razed and turned into forests.[46] Nationalists of peoples who had lived under
Soviet rule as well as anti-communists of all nationalities collaborated with the Nazi occupation. The populaces of
Nazi-occupied Soviet Russia who racially qualified as of the Aryan race, or had no immediate Jewish ancestors,
were not persecuted, and often were recruited into the Waffen-SS divisions.
Eventually, the Nazi regime meant to Germanize the racially acceptable Volk (ethnic groups) of occupied eastern
Europe, with the rest to be exterminated.[47] Parts of the plan were implemented in Polish areas annexed by Nazi
Germany, with the classification of Poles on the Nazi Volksliste, according to their racial characteristics.[48] People
classified as Germans who nonetheless resisted were sent to concentration camps.[49] Those who were not classified
as Germans were expelled.[50] Ethnic Germans from the Baltic states were encouraged to leave them, and were
settled in Poland in the houses of the expelled Poles. These, and the Poles classified as Germans, were subjected to
programs to Germanize them.[51] Children were also abducted from Eastern Europe for Germanization.[52]
11
Nazi Germany
12
Turning point
In early 1942, the Red Army counter-attacked Hitler's offensive, and,
by winter's end, the Wehrmacht were no longer immediately outside
Moscow. Yet the Germans and their allies held a strong line, and, in
the summer, launched a major attack against the petroleum fields of the
Caucasus in Southern Russia. To secure the flanks of this offensive, a
line at the Volga had to be held, which led to the Battle of Stalingrad
(17 July 1942 – 2 February 1943), wherein Germany and its allies
were defeated. After winning a major tank battle at Kursk-Orel in July
1943, the Red Army progressed west towards Germany; henceforth,
the Wehrmacht and its allies remained on the defensive.
Field Marshal Rommel inspecting the Free India
Legion, France, 1944
In Libya, the Afrika Korps failed to break through the line at First
Battle of El Alamein (1–27 July 1942), having suffered repercussions
from the Battle of Stalingrad. Beginning in 1942, Allied bombing of
Germany increased, severely damaging, among others, the cities of
Hamburg, Cologne and Dresden, killing thousands of civilians, and
causing hardship for the survivors.[53] Contemporary estimates of Nazi
German military dead at this point of the war are 5.5 million.[54]
In November 1942, the Wehrmacht and the Italian Army retreated to
Tunisia, where they fought the Americans and the British in the
Tunisia Campaign (17 November 1942 – 13 May 1943). The Allies
US soldiers cross the Franco–German Siegfried
Line
invaded Sicily and Italy thereafter, but met fierce resistance,
particularly at Anzio (22 January 1944 – 5 June 1944) and Cassino (17
January 1944 – 18 May 1944). The campaign continued from mid-1943 to nearly the end of the war. In June 1944,
American, British and Canadian forces established the western front with the D-Day (6 June 1944) landings in
Normandy, France. After the successful Operation Bagration (22 June – 19 August 1944), the Red Army was in
Poland; and in East Prussia, West Prussia, and Silesia the German populaces fled en masse, fearing Communist
persecution, atrocity, and death. In spring of 1945, the Red Army was at Berlin; US and UK forces had conquered
most of west Germany (and would go on to meet up with the Red Army at Torgau on the Elbe on 26 April 1945).
Collapse
During the Battle of Berlin (16 April 1945 – 2 May 1945), Hitler and
key staff members lived in the armoured, underground Führerbunker
while above ground the Red Army fought remnant forces made up of
the German army, Hitler Youth, and Waffen-SS for control of the
ruined capital city of Nazi Germany. In the Führerbunker, Hitler
became psychologically isolated and detached. At the situation
conference of 22 April, Hitler suffered a total nervous collapse when
he was informed that the instructions he had issued the previous day
After the battle, Soviet soldiers hoist the Soviet
for SS-General Felix Steiner's Army Detachment Steiner to move to
flag on the balcony of the Hotel Adlon in Berlin
the rescue of Berlin had not materialised.[55] Hitler openly declared for
the first time the war was lost and blamed the generals. Hitler announced he would stay in Berlin until the end and
then shoot himself.[56] On 23 April, as Berlin became more isolated, Hermann Göring sent Hitler an ultimatum,
threatening to assume command of Nazi Germany if he received no reply—which he would interpret as Hitler being
Nazi Germany
13
incapacitated. Upon receiving the ultimatum, the Führer ordered Göring's immediate arrest, and despatched an
aeroplane delivering the reply to Göring in Bavaria. By 25 April the Red Army encirclement of Berlin was complete
and secure radio communications with defending units had been lost; the command staff in the bunker complex were
depending on telephone lines for passing orders and on public radio for news and information.[57] Despite the losses
of armies and lands, the Führer neither relinquished power, nor surrendered. On 28 April, a BBC report stated that
Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler had offered surrender to the western Allies.[58] Hitler ordered Himmler's arrest
and had Hermann Fegelein (Himmler's SS representative at Hitler's HQ in Berlin) shot.[59]
On 30 April 1945, after intense street-to-street combat in Berlin, when Soviet troops were within a block or two of
the Reich Chancellery, Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide in his Führerbunker.[60] Two days later, on 2 May
1945, German General Helmuth Weidling unconditionally surrendered Berlin to Soviet General Vasily Chuikov.[61]
Hitler was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as Reich President and Goebbels as Reich Chancellor. No one
was to replace Hitler as the Führer, a position Hitler abolished in his will. However, Goebbels committed suicide
outside the Reich Chancellery a day after assuming office. The caretaker government Dönitz established near the
Danish border unsuccessfully sought a separate peace with the Western Allies. On 4–8 May 1945 most of the
remaining German armed forces throughout Europe surrendered unconditionally (German Instrument of Surrender,
1945). This was the end of World War II in Europe.
Aftermath
Further information: Aftermath of World War II and Consequences of Nazism
Casualties
The war was the largest and most destructive in human history, with 60 million dead across the world,[62] including
approximately 6 million Jews who perished during the Holocaust,[63] 3 million Soviet prisoners of war and at least 3
million civilian non-Jewish victims of Nazi crimes.[64][65] The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people during the
war,[66] about half of all World War II casualties.[67] One in four Soviets were killed or wounded.[68] The postwar
Soviet population was 45 to 50 million smaller than it would have been if pre-war demographic growth had
continued.[69] Towards the end of the war, Europe had more than 40 million refugees,[70] the European economy had
collapsed, and 70% of the European industrial infrastructure was destroyed.[71]
War crimes
Further information: Nuremberg Trials
The United Nations organized trials of Nazi leaders for war crimes and
crimes against humanity. At the Nuremberg Trials, the first, major trial
was the Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International
Military Tribunal (IMT), of 24 key Nazi officials—including Hermann
Göring, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Rudolf Hess, Albert Speer, Karl Dönitz,
Hans Frank, and Julius Streicher. Most defendants were found guilty,
12 were sentenced to execution.[72] The victorious Allies outlawed the
Nazi Party, its subsidiary organizations, and most of its symbols and
emblems especially the swastika throughout Germany and Austria; this
prohibition remains in force.
Allied occupation
The prosecution's principal defendant was
Hermann Göring (left, first row ), the most
important surviving Third Reich official.
With the creation of the Allied Control Council on 5 July 1945, the four Allied powers "assume[d] supreme authority
with respect to Germany" (Declaration Regarding the Defeat of Germany, U.S. Department of State, Treaties and
Other International Acts Series, No. 1520).
Nazi Germany
The Allies' Potsdam Conference in August 1945 created arrangements for the Allied occupation and denazification
of the country, as well as war reparations involving the removal of war-related factories. All German annexations in
Europe after 1937, and Germany's eastern border was shifted westwards to the Oder-Neisse line. France took
temporary control of a large part of Germany's remaining Saar region. The Allies each had its zone, which lasted
until 1949; Berlin was also divided four ways, and remained under Allied control until 1990.[73]
Geography
Pre-war territorial changes
The German national borders in 1933 were
those mapped out by the victors in World
War I, at the Treaty of Versailles (1919). To
the north, Germany was bounded by the
North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to
the east, it was divided into two and
bordered Lithuania, the Free City of Danzig,
Poland, and Czechoslovakia; to the south, it
bordered Austria and Switzerland, and to the
west, it touched France, Luxembourg,
Belgium, the Netherlands, and the Saarland.
These borders changed after Germany
regained control of the Saarland,
transformed itself into Greater Germany by
annexing Austria in the Anschluss (1938),
Territorial expansion of Germany from 1933 to 1943.
and also gained control of the Sudetenland,
the remainder of Bohemia and Moravia, and
the Memel Territory before the war. Germany expanded further by seizing even more land during World War II,
which began in September 1939.
In the years leading to war, in addition to the Weimar Republic proper, the Reich came to include areas with ethnic
German populations, such as Austria, the Czechoslovak Sudetenland, and the Lithuanian territory of Memel (the
Klaipėda Region). Regions conquered after the war's start include Eupen-Malmedy, Alsace-Lorraine, Danzig, and
territories of Poland (Second Polish Republic).
14
Nazi Germany
Administrative divisions
To consolidate Adolf Hitler's control of
Germany, in 1935, the Nazi régime de facto
replaced the administration of the Länder
(constituent states) with gaus (regional
districts) headed by governors answerable to
the central Reich government in Berlin. The
reorganization politically weakened Prussia,
which had historically dominated German
politics.
Moreover,
despite
having
centralised and assumed the Gau
governments, some Nazis still retained
leadership title to the different Länder;
Hermann Göring was and remained the
Administrative regions of Greater German Reich in 1944.
Reichsstatthalter (Reich state governor) and
Minister President of Prussia until 1945,
and Ludwig Siebert remained as Minister President of Bavaria.
Wartime expansion
Further information: Territorial changes of Germany
From 1939 to 1945, the Third Reich ruled the ethnically-Czech parts of Czechoslovakia as the Protectorate of
Bohemia and Moravia, with its own currency; Czech Silesia was incorporated into the province of Silesia; and
Luxembourg was a wartime annexation in 1940. Central Poland and Polish Galicia were governed by the
German-administered General Government. Eventually, the Polish people were to be removed, and Poland proper
then re-populated with 5 million Germans. By late 1943, Nazi Germany had conquered South Tyrol and Istria, which
had been parts of Austria-Hungary before 1919, and seized Trieste after the (erstwhile Axis Ally) Italian Fascist
government capitulated to the Allies. Two puppet-districts were set up in their place, the Operational Zone of the
Adriatic Littoral and the Operational Zone of the Alpine Foothills.
Occupied territories
Further information: Reichskommissariat and Territories occupied by the Nazi Germany
Beyond the territories incorporated into Germany were the
Reichskommissariate (Reich Commissariats), quasi-colonial regimes
established in a number of occupied countries and regions that were
ruled by Nazi civilian administrators (Reichskommissars). Although
"outside" of the Reich in a legal sense these were intended for eventual
incorporation into it, most notably as sources for future Lebensraum.
Nazi-occupied Soviet Russia included the Reichskommissariat Ostland
(encompassing the Baltic states, eastern parts of Poland, and western
Soviet partisans hanged by German forces in
parts of Belarus) and a Reichskommissariat Ukraine. More such
January 1943.
districts, the Reichskommissariat Moskowien for much of Western
Russia, the Reichskommissariat Kaukasus for the Caucasus, and the
Reichskommissariat Turkestan for Central Asia were also proposed in the event that they were brought under
German rule.
15
Nazi Germany
In Northern and Western Europe, the Germans established a Reichskommissariat Norwegen (Norway), and a
Reichskommissariat Niederlande (the Netherlands). In June 1944 a Franco–Belgian Reichskommissariat, derived
from the previous Military Administration in Belgium and Northern France was also established to "facilitate" the
area's intended annexation into Germany. This subsequently happened in December 1944, when it was split into
three new Reichsgaue of the Greater German Reich: Flanders, Wallonia, and Brussels. This meant little in reality
however as the majority of Belgium had already been liberated by the Allied forces at this point, although the
Wehrmacht did make some small gains in retaking Wallonia during the Ardennes offensive.
Hitler and other leading Nazi politicians believed that the non-German Germanic peoples of Europe, such as the
Scandinavians, the Dutch, and the Flemish, were part of the "Aryan master race". Hitler stated that he wanted to
undo the "unnatural division" of the Nordic race into many different countries ("Kleinstaatengerümpel"). This was
expanded on by Nazi ideologists, who made the analogy that since the union with Austria had transformed the
German Reich into a Greater German Reich (Grossdeutsches Reich), so too would its union with the rest of
historically Germanic Europe create a Greater Germanic Reich (Grossgermanisches Reich). The United Kingdom
however was expected to be accorded a somewhat higher status, as partners in the Nazis' New Order rather than
subjects. Hitler professed an admiration for the British Empire and its people as proof of Aryan superiority in
Zweites Buch.
Post-war changes
The de facto borders of the Reich changed long before its vanquishment in May 1945; as the Red Army progressed
westwards (colonist German populaces fled to Germany proper) and as the Western Allies advanced eastwards from
France. At war's end, a small strip of land, from Austria to Bohemia and Moravia (and other isolated regions) was
the only area not occupied by the Allies. Upon its defeat, some historians have proposed that the Reich was in
debellation. France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, established occupation zones. The
prewar German lands east of the Oder-Neisse line and Stettin, and environs (nearly 25 percent of pre-war German
territory) were under Polish and Soviet administration, sundered for Polish and Soviet annexation; the Allies
expelled the German inhabitants. In 1947, the Allied Control Council disestablished Prussia with Law No. 46 (20
May 1947); per the Potsdam Conference (6 July – 2 August 1945), the Prussian lands east of the Oder-Neisse Line
were divided and administered by Poland and the Kaliningrad Oblast, pending the final peace treaty Later, by
signing the Treaty of Warsaw (1970) and the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (1990),
Germany renounced claims to territories lost during World War II (1939–45).
Politics
Further information: Adolf Hitler
The Nazi state idolized Hitler as its Führer ("Leader"), centralizing all power in his hands. Nazi propaganda centered
on Hitler and created what historians call the "Hitler Myth" – that Hitler was all-wise and that any mistakes or
failures by others would be corrected when brought to his attention. In reality, Hitler had a narrow range of interests,
and decision-making was diffused among overlapping, feuding power centers; on some issues he was passive,
simply assenting to pressures from whoever had his ear. Top officials reported to Hitler and followed his basic
policies, but they had considerable autonomy on a daily basis.[74] Through staffing of most government positions
with Nazi Party members, by 1935 the German national government and the Nazi Party had become virtually one
and the same. By 1938, through the policy of Gleichschaltung, local and state governments lost all legislative power
and answered administratively to Nazi Party leaders, known as Gauleiters, who governed Gaue and Reichsgaue.
16
Nazi Germany
Government structure
Nazi Germany was made up of various competing power structures, all trying to gain favor with the Führer, Adolf
Hitler. Thus many existing laws were stricken and replaced with interpretations of what Hitler wanted. Any high
party/government official could take one of Hitler's comments and turn it into a new law, of which Hitler would
casually either approve or disapprove. This became known as "working towards the Führer", as the government was
not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of individuals each trying to gain more power and influence
through the Führer. This often made government very convoluted and divided, especially with Hitler's vague policy
of creating similar posts with overlapping powers and authority. The process allowed the more unscrupulous and
ambitious Nazis to get away with implementing the more radical and extreme elements of Hitler's ideology, such as
anti-Semitism, and in doing so win political favor. Protected by Goebbels' extremely effective propaganda machine,
which portrayed the government as a dedicated, dutiful, and efficient outfit, the dog-eat-dog competition and chaotic
legislation was allowed to escalate. Historical opinion is divided between "intentionalists", who believe that Hitler
created this system as the only means of ensuring both the total loyalty and dedication of his supporters and the
impossibility of a conspiracy; and "structuralists", who believe that the system evolved by itself and was a limitation
on Hitler's supposedly totalitarian power.
• Executive Cabinets
• Hitler Cabinet
• Cabinet Schwerin von Krosigk
• National authorities
•
•
•
•
•
Chancellery of the Führer (Philip Bouhler)
Office of the Party Chancellery (Martin Bormann)
Office of the Presidential Chancellery (Otto Meißner)
Office of the Reich Chancellery (Hans Lammers)
Privy Cabinet Council (Konstantin von Neurath)
• Reich Ministries
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Reich Foreign Ministry (Joachim von Ribbentrop)
Reich Interior Ministry (Wilhelm Frick, Heinrich Himmler)
Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (Joseph Goebbels)
Reich Ministry of Aviation (Hermann Göring)
Reich Ministry of Finance (Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk)
Reich Ministry of Justice (Franz Gürtner, Otto Thierack)
Reich Economics Ministry (Alfred Hugenberg, Kurt Schmitt, Hjalmar Schacht, Hermann Göring, Walther
Funk)
Reich Ministry for Nutrition and Agriculture (Richard Walther Darré, Herbert Backe)
Reich Labour Ministry (Franz Seldte)
Reich Ministry for Science, Education, and Public Instruction (Bernhard Rust)
Reich Ministry for Ecclesiastical Affairs (Hanns Kerrl)
Reich Transportation Ministry (Julius Dorpmüller)
Reich Postal Ministry (Wilhelm Ohnesorge)
Reich Ministry for Weapons, Munitions, and Armament (Fritz Todt, Albert Speer)
Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (Alfred Rosenberg)
Reich Ministers without Portfolio (Konstantin von Neurath, Hans Frank, Hjalmar Schacht, Arthur
Seyss-Inquart)
• Reich offices
• Office of the Four Year Plan (Hermann Göring)
17
Nazi Germany
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
18
Office of the Inspector for Highways
Office of the President of the Reich Bank
Reich Main Security Office (Reinhard Heydrich)
Office of the Reich Master Forester (Hermann Göring)
Reich Youth Office
Reich Treasury Office
General Inspector of the Reich Capital
Office of the Councilor for the Capital of the Movement (Munich, Bavaria)
• NSDAP offices
•
•
•
•
NSDAP Office of Racial Policy
NSDAP Office of Colonial Policy
NSDAP Office of Foreign Affairs
Amt Rosenberg
State ideology
Further information: Nazism
National Socialism had some of the key ideological elements of fascism which originally developed in Italy under
Benito Mussolini; however, the Nazis never officially declared themselves fascists. Both ideologies involved the
political use of militarism, nationalism, anti-communism and paramilitary forces, and both intended to create a
dictatorial state. The Nazis, however, were far more racially oriented than the fascists in Italy, Portugal, and Spain.
The Nazis were also intent on creating a completely totalitarian state, unlike Italian fascists who while promoting a
totalitarian state, allowed a larger degree of private liberties for their citizens. These differences allowed the Italian
monarchy to continue to exist and have some official powers. However the Nazis copied much of their symbolism
from the Fascists in Italy, such as copying the Roman salute as the Nazi salute, use of mass rallies, both made use of
uniformed paramilitaries devoted to the party (the SA in Germany and the Blackshirts in Italy), both Hitler and
Mussolini were called the "Leader" (Führer in German, Duce in Italian), both were anti-Communist, both wanted an
ideologically driven state, and both advocated a middle-way between capitalism and communism, commonly known
as corporatism. The party itself rejected the fascist label, claiming National Socialism was an ideology unique to
Germany.
The totalitarian nature of the Nazi party was one of its principal tenets. The Nazis
contended that all the great achievements in the past of the German nation and its
people were associated with the ideals of National Socialism, even before the
ideology officially existed. Propaganda accredited the consolidation of Nazi
ideals and successes of the regime to the regime's Führer ("Leader"), Adolf
Hitler, who was portrayed as the genius behind the Nazi party's success and
Germany's saviour.
The "German problem", as it is often referred to in English scholarship, focuses
on the issue of administration of Germanic regions in Northern and Central
Europe, an important theme throughout German history.[75] The "logic" of
keeping Germany small worked in the favor of its principal economic rivals, and
had been a driving force in the recreation of a Polish state. The goal was to create
numerous counterweights in order to "balance out Germany's power".
Nuremberg Rally, SA and SS with
Adolf Hitler, Viktor Lutze and
Heinrich Himmler, 5.-10. September
1934.
Nazi Germany
The Nazis endorsed the concept of Großdeutschland, or Greater Germany, and believed that the incorporation of the
Germanic people into one nation was a vital step towards their national success. It was the Nazis' passionate support
of the Volk concept of Greater Germany that led to Germany's expansion, that gave legitimacy and the support
needed for the Third Reich to proceed to conquer long-lost territories with overwhelmingly non-German population
like former Prussian gains in Poland that it lost to Russia in the 19th century, or to acquire territories with German
population like parts of Austria. The German concept of Lebensraum or more specifically its need for an expanding
German population was also claimed by the Nazi regime for territorial expansion.
Two important issues were administration of the Polish corridor and Danzig's incorporation into the Reich. As a
further extension of racial policy, the Lebensraum program pertained to similar interests; the Nazis determined that
Eastern Europe would be settled with ethnic Germans, and the Slavic population who met the Nazi racial standard
would be absorbed into the Reich. Those not fitting the racial standard were to be used as cheap labour force or
deported eastward.[76]
Racialism and racism were important aspects of society within the Third Reich. The Nazis combined antisemitism
with anti-Communist ideology, regarding the leftist-internationalist movement—as well as international market
capitalism—as the work of "Conspiratorial Jewry". They referred to this so-called movement with terminology such
as the "Jewish-Bolshevistic revolution of subhumans".[77] This platform manifested itself in the displacement,
internment, and systematic extermination of an estimated 11 million to 12 million people in the midst of World War
II, roughly half of them being Jews targeted in what is historically remembered as the Holocaust (Shoah), 3 million
ethnic Poles that died as a result of warfare, genocide, reprisals, forced labor or famine,[78] and another
100,000–1,000,000 being Roma, who were murdered in the Porajmos. Other victims of Nazi persecution included
communists, various political opponents, social outcasts, homosexuals, freethinkers, religious dissidents such as
Jehovah's Witnesses, Christadelphians, the Confessing Church and Freemasons.[79]
Law
Further information: Law of Germany, Reichstag (Weimar Republic), and Reichsrat (Germany)
Most of the judicial structures and legal codes of the Weimar Republic remained in use during and after the Third
Reich, but significant changes within the judicial codes occurred, as well as significant changes in court rulings. The
Nazi party was the only legal political party in Germany and all other political parties were banned. Most human
rights of the constitution of the Weimar Republic were disabled by several Reichsgesetze ("Reich's laws"). Several
minorities such as the Jews, opposition politicians and prisoners of war were deprived of most of their rights and
responsibilities. The Plan to pass a Volksstrafgesetzbuch ("people's code of criminal justice") arose soon after 1933,
but didn't come into reality until the end of World War II.
As a new type of court, the Volksgerichtshof ("people's court") was established in 1934, only dealing with cases of
political importance. From 1934 – September 1944, a total of 5,375 death sentences were spoken by the court. Not
included in this numbers are the death sentences from 20 July 1944 – April 1945, which are estimated at 2,000. Its
most prominent jurist was Roland Freisler, who headed the court from August 1942 – February 1945.
Foreign policy
Foreign relations between Germany and the rest of Europe were riddled with political maneuvers and opportunistic
decisions. Fearing a second world war, Britain and France sought a policy of appeasement towards Germany, and
refused aggressive foreign policies to satisfy the newly empowered Nazis. Hitler's aims upon coming to power was
threefold; destroy Versailles, re-unite lost German territories under the decrees of Versailles, and Lebensraum. It is
said that Hitler wanted Britain as an ally with wars with the USSR, and eventually the USA. Hitler used the
Appeasement policies of Britain and France to his opportunistic advantage when he announced in March 1935 that
he would conscript men into his army and create the Luftwaffe; both a direct violation of Versailles. His foreign
policies were designed to test the nerve of Britain and France so he could see what else he was able to get away with.
19
Nazi Germany
20
His other concern was Italy, whom under Mussolini had become a similarly fascist country, but had so much internal
civil disruption Hitler wanted a more stable and powerful ally.
The Axis
Although Germany's relations with Italy improved with creation of the Rome-Berlin Axis, tensions remained high
because the Nazis wanted Austria to be incorporated into Germany. Italy was opposed to this, as were France and
Britain. In 1938, an Austrian-led Nazi coup took place in Austria and Germany sent in its troops, annexing the
country. Italy and Britain no longer had common interests and, as Germany had stopped supporting the German
speaking population under Italy's control in South Tyrol, Italy began to gravitate towards Germany.
Munich Agreement
Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia in
September 1938 came about during talks with British Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain, in which Hitler, backed by Italian dictator Benito
Mussolini, demanded that the German territories be ceded.
Chamberlain and Hitler came to an agreement when Hitler signed a
piece of paper which said that with the annexation of the Sudetenland,
Germany would proceed with no further territorial aims. Chamberlain
took this to be a success in that it avoided a potential war with
Germany. However, the Nazis helped to promote Slovakian dissention
and declaring that the country was no more, seized control of the
Czech part.
Hitler (center) with (from left to right) Neville
Chamberlain, Édouard Daladier, Benito
Mussolini, and Galeazzo Ciano pictured before
signing the Munich Agreement.
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
For quite some time, Germany had engaged in informal negotiations with Poland regarding the issue of territorial
revision, but after the Munich Agreement and the reacquisition of Memel, the Nazis became increasingly vocal.
Poland refused to allow the annexation of the Free City of Danzig.
Germany and the Soviet Union began talks over planning an invasion of Poland. In August 1939, the Molotov Pact
was signed and Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to divide Poland along a mutually agreed set boundary. The
invasion was put into effect on 1 September 1939. Last-minute Polish-German diplomatic proceedings failed, and
Germany invaded Poland as scheduled. Germany alleged that Polish operatives had attacked German positions, but
the result was the outbreak of World War II in Europe, as Allied forces refused to accept Germany's claims on
Poland and blamed Germany for the conflict.
Wartime
From 1939–1940, the so-called "Phoney War" occurred, as German forces made no further advances but instead,
both the Axis and Allies engaged in a propaganda campaign. However in early 1940, Germany began to concern that
the British intended to stop trade between Sweden and Germany by bringing Norway into an alliance against
Germany, with Norway in Allied hands, the Allies would be dangerously close to German territory. In response,
Germany invaded Denmark and Norway ending the Phoney War (leapfrogging the British invasion troops bound
towards Norway by just 24 hours). After sweeping through the Low Countries and occupying northern France,
Germany allowed French nationalist and war hero Philippe Petain to form a fascist regime in southern France known
as the "French State" but more commonly referred to as Vichy France named after its capital in Vichy.
On 23 October 1940 Hitler and Francisco Franco, the dictator of Spain, met in Hendaye to discuss Spain entering the
war. Franco asked too much from Hitler. Even though Spain would remain neutral during World War II Spain and
Nazi Germany would remain allies during the war. Spain would send volunteer soldiers to fight for Germany but
Nazi Germany
21
only against the Soviet Union. Spain was subsequently isolated following the war until re-aligning towards economic
liberalism and a pro-Western foreign policy in the 1950s.
In 1941, Germany's invasion of Yugoslavia resulted in that state's splintering. In spite of Hitler's earlier view of
inferiority of all Slavs, he supported Mussolini's agenda of creating a fascist puppet state of Croatia, called the
Independent State of Croatia. Croatia was led by the extreme nationalist Ante Pavelić a long-time Croatian exile in
Rome, whose Ustashe movement formed a government in modern-day Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The
Ustashe were allowed to persecute Serbs, while Germany contributed to that goal in the Territory of the Military
Commander in Serbia.
From 1941 to the end of the war, Germany engaged in war with the Soviet Union in its attempt to create the Nazi
colonial goal of Lebensraum for German citizens. The German occupation authorities set up occupation and colonial
authorities called Reichskommissariats such as Reichskommissariat Ostland and Reichskommissariat Ukraine. The
Slavic populations were to be destroyed along with Jews there to make way for German colonists.
As the fortunes of war changed, Germany was forced to occupy Italy when Mussolini was thrown out as Prime
Minister by Italy's king in 1943. German forces rescued Mussolini and instructed him to establish a fascist regime in
Italy called the Italian Social Republic. This was the last major foreign policy delivered. The remainder of the war
saw the decline of German power and desperate attempts by Nazi officials such as Heinrich Himmler to negotiate a
peace with the western Allies against the wishes of Hitler.
Military and paramilitary
Further information: Reichswehr, Wehrmacht, German
(1935–1945), Kriegsmarine, Luftwaffe, and Waffen-SS
Army
Wehrmacht
The military of the Third Reich – the Wehrmacht – was the name of
the unified armed forces of Germany from 1935–1945 with Heer
(army), Kriegsmarine (navy), Luftwaffe (air force) and a military
organization Waffen-SS (military branch of the SS, which was, de
facto, a fourth branch of the Wehrmacht).[80]
A column of tanks and other armoured vehicles
of the Panzerwaffe, near Stalingrad, 1942.
The German Army furthered concepts pioneered during World War I,
combining Ground and Air Force assets into combined arms teams. Coupled with traditional war fighting methods
such as encirclements and the "battle of annihilation", the German military managed many lightning quick victories
in the first year of World War II, prompting foreign journalists to create a new word for what they witnessed:
Blitzkrieg. The total number of soldiers who served in the Wehrmacht during its existence from 1935–1945 is
believed to approach 18.2 million. Officially, roughly 5.3 million German soldiers died in the course of the war.[81]
The SA and SS
To secure their ability to create a totalitarian state, the Nazi party's paramilitary force, the Sturmabteilung (SA) or
"Storm Detachment" used acts of violence against leftists, communists, democrats, Jews and other opposition or
minority groups. The SA "storm troopers" violently clashed with the Communist Party of Germany (German
Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands – KPD) which created a climate of lawlessness and fear. In the cities, people
were anxious over punishment or even death, if they displayed opposition to the Nazis. Given the frustrations of the
people (after World War I and during the Great Depression) it was easy for the SA to attract large numbers of
alienated (and unemployed) youth and working-class people for the party.
Nazi Germany
Economy
Reich economics
When the Nazis assumed German government, their most pressing
economic matter was a national unemployment rate of approximately
30 per cent;[82] at the start, Third Reich economic policies were the
brainchildren of the economist Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, President of the
Reichsbank (1933) and Minister of Economics (1934), who helped
Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler implement Nazi redevelopment,
reindustrialization, and rearmament of Germany; formerly, he had been
Weimar Republic currency commissioner and Reichsbank president.
[82]
As Economics Minister, Schacht was one of few ministers who
took advantage of the administrative freedom allowed by the removal
of the Reichsmark from the gold standard—to maintain low interest
20 Reichsmark note
rates, and high government deficits; the extensive national public
works such as the Autobahns, reducing the unemployment, were deficit-funded policy.[82] The consequence of
Economics Minister Schacht's administration was the extremely rapid unemployment-rate decline, the greatest of
any country during the Great Depression[82]. Eventually, this Keynesian economic policy was supplemented by the
increased production demands of warfare, inflating military budgets, and increasing government spending; the
Reichswehr (100,000 in the army) expanded to millions, and was renamed Wehrmacht in 1935.[82][83]
While the strict state intervention into the economy, and the massive rearmament policy, almost led to full
employment during the 1930s (statistics didn't include non-citizens or women), real wages in Germany dropped by
roughly 25% between 1933 and 1938.[82] Trade unions were abolished, as well as collective bargaining and the right
to strike.[82] The right to quit also disappeared: Labour books were introduced in 1935, and required the consent of
the previous employer in order to be hired for another job.[82]
Nazi control of business retained a diminished investment profit-incentive, controlled with economic regulation
concording a company's functioning with the Reich's national production requirements. Government financing
eventually dominated private investment; in the 1933–34 biennium, the proportion of private securities issued
diminished from more than 50 per cent of the total, to approximately 10 per cent in the 1935–38 quadrennium.
Heavy profit taxes limited self-financing companies, and the largest companies (usually government contractors)
mostly were exempted from paying taxes on profits—in practice. Peter Temin writes that government control
allowed “only the shell of private ownership” in the Third Reich economy.[84] By contrast, Christoph Buchheim and
Jonas Scherner counter that despite state control, business had much production and investment planning freedom —
while the economy was still to a larger degree politically controlled it "does not necessarily mean that private
property of enterprises was not of any significance [...] For despite extensive regulatory activity by an interventionist
public administration, firms preserved a good deal of their autonomy even under the Nazi regime".[85]
In 1937, Hermann Göring replaced Hjalmar Schacht as Minister of Economics, and introduced the Four Year Plan
that would establish German self-sufficiency for war—within four years—by curtailing foreign importations; fixing
wages and prices (violators merited concentration-camp internment); stock dividends were restricted to six per cent
on book capital, et cetera. Strategic goals were to be achieved regardless of cost (as in Soviet economics): thus the
rapid construction of synthetic-rubber factories, steel mills, automatic textile mills, et cetera. [82] The Four Year Plan
is discussed in the German-expansion Hossbach Memorandum (5 November 1937) meeting-summary of Hitler and
his military and foreign policy leaders planning aggressive war. Nevertheless, when Nazi Germany started World
War II, in September 1939, the Four Year Plan's expiry was not until 1940; to control the Reich economy,
Economics Minister Göring had established the Office of the Four Year Plan.
22
Nazi Germany
23
Wartime economy and forced labor
In keeping with the political syncretism of fascism, the Nazi war
economy was a mixed economy of free-market and central-planning
practices; historian Richard Overy reports: "The German economy fell
between two stools. It was not enough of a command economy to do
what the Soviet system could do; yet it was not capitalist enough to
rely, as America did, on the recruitment of private enterprise."[86]
In 1942, after the death of Fritz Todt, Hitler named his favourite
architect, Albert Speer, in charge of the domestic economy.[87] Speer
established a war economy in Nazi Germany, which reduced civilian
consumptions and made the war economy more efficient.[88]
OST-Arbeiter badge
By 1944, the war was consuming 75% of German GDP, compared to
60% in the Soviet Union, 55% in Britain, and 45% in the U.S.[89]
The highest high priority went to the manufacture of warplanes, which
had been poorly coordinated and relied too heavily on skilled workers,
who were in short supply. Speer produced a dramatic rise in production
after 1942. His methods included streamlined organization, the use of
single-purpose machines operated by unskilled workers, and the
rationalization of production methods, and better coordination between
the many different forms that made tens of thousands of components.
Factories were relocated away from rail yards which were bombing
targets. The system finally caught up with British production by 1944,
but by then it was far too late and gasoline supplies meant the new
warplanes had little flying time.[90][91]
The economy now relied heavily upon the large-scale employment of
forced labourers. To help operate the factories and farms, Germany
Employment Record Book for the foreigners
took in some 12 million people, from some 20 European countries;
approximately 75 per cent were Eastern European.[92] They worked
long hours, typically in munitions factories; many were assigned to clearing rubble after bombing raids. They
received poor air raid protection, and many were casualties of Allied bombing. The very bad living conditions
produced high rates of sickness, injury and death, as well as sabotage and criminality.[93]
Women played an increasingly large role. Hagemann reports that in 1944 over a half million served as auxiliaries in
the German armed forces, especially in anti-aircraft units of the Luftwaffe; a half million worked in civil aerial
defense; and 400,000 were volunteer nurses in hospitals. Large numbers replaced drafted men in the wartime
economy, especially on farms and in small family-owned shops.[94]
Very heavy strategic bombing by the U.S. and Britain focused on the German transportation system, especially rail
yards,[95] canals, and refineries making synthetic oil and gasoline. The Luftwaffe tried to defend those targets but in
turn was itself destroyed. Oil, diesel and gasoline supplies dried up by late 1944, and the railways were so disrupted
that the economy went into a death spiral.[96] Overy argues that the bombing created not only major social
dislocation but a defensive response that strained the German war economy and forced it to divert up to one-fourth of
its manpower and industry into anti-aircraft resources. Overy concludes the bombing campaign probably shortened
the war.[97]
Nazi Germany
24
Demographics
Ethnic groups
Religions
The German census of May 1939 indicates that 54 percent of Germans
considered themselves Protestant and 40 percent considered
themselves Catholic, with only 3.5 percent claiming to be neo-pagan
"believers in God," and 1.5 percent unbelievers. This census came
more than six years into the Nazi era.[98]
German warning in occupied Poland 1939 - "No
entrance for Poles!"
Education
Further information: University education in Nazi Germany
Education under the Nazi regime focused on racial biology, population policy, culture, geography and especially
physical fitness.[99] Military education (Wehrerziehung) became the central component of physical education in
order to prepare the Germans mentally, spiritually and physically for warfare.[100] science textbooks presented
natural selection in terms meant to underline the concept of racial purity.[101]
Anti-Semitic policy led to the expulsion in 1933 all of Jewish teachers,
professors and officials from the education system. Likewise,
politically undesirable teachers, such as socialists, were expelled as
part of the “Law for the Restoration of the Civil Service” (Gesetz zur
Wiederherstellung des Berufbeamtentums). Most teachers were
required to belong to the National Socialist Teachers' Association
(Nationalsozialistischer Lehrerbund, NSLB).[102] All university
professors were required to be a member in good standing of the
National Socialist Association of University Lecturers.[103]
The Nazi salute in school, 1934. Children were
indoctrinated at an early age.
The teaching methods promoted under National Socialism were
experiential and active in their orientation. This was largely an
extension of the anti-intellectual attitude of the Nazi leadership, however, and not primarily an attempt to experiment
with new didactic methods. As Henrich Hansen, the head of the NS-Teachers' Association, put it:
"The youth of Germany will no longer be 'objectively' posed with the choice between an upbringing that is
materialistic or idealistic, ethnic [Völkish] or international, religious or godless, rather it will be consciously
formed according to principles that have shown themselves to be true: the principles of the national socialist
worldview.[104]
In seeking a way to make education less abstract, less intellectual and less distant from children, educators called for
a much-expanded role for film. Reichsfilmintendant and Head of the Film Section in the Propaganda Ministry Fritz
Hippler wrote that film affects people “primarily on the optical and emotional, that is to say, non-intellectual”
level.[105] Film also appealed to the Nazi leadership as a medium through which they could speak directly to
children. Dr. Bernhard Rust saw film as an essential tool, saying "The National Socialist State definitely and
deliberately makes the film the transmitter of its ideology."[106]
Nazi Germany
25
Health
According to the research of Robert N. Proctor for his book The Nazi
War on Cancer,[107][108] Nazi Germany had arguably the most
powerful anti-tobacco movement in the world. Anti-tobacco research
received a strong backing from the government, and German scientists
proved that cigarette smoke could cause cancer. German pioneering
research on experimental epidemiology led to the 1939 paper by Franz
H. Müller, and the 1943 paper by Eberhard Schairer and Erich
Schöniger which convincingly demonstrated that tobacco smoking was
a main culprit in lung cancer. The government urged German doctors
to counsel patients against tobacco use. German research on the
dangers of tobacco was silenced after the war, and the dangers of
tobacco had to be rediscovered by American and English scientists in
the early 1950s, with a medical consensus arising in the early 1960s.
Statues of the ideal male body in the streets of
Berlin, raised on the occasion of the 1936
Summer Olympics.
German scientists also proved that asbestos was a health hazard, and in 1943—as the first nation in the world to offer
such a benefit—Germany recognized the diseases caused by asbestos, e.g., lung cancer, as occupational illnesses
eligible for compensation. The German asbestos-cancer research was later used by American lawyers doing battle
against the Johns-Manville Corporation.
As part of the general public-health campaign in Nazi Germany, water supplies were cleaned up, lead and mercury
were removed from consumer products, and women were urged to undergo regular screenings for breast
cancer.[108][109]
The Nazi health care system also held as a central idea the concept of Eugenics. Certain people were deemed
'genetically inferior' and were targeted for elimination from the gene pool through sterilization (Hereditary Health
Courts) or wholesale murder (Action T4). Medical information professionals used new processes and technology,
like punch card systems, and cost analysis, to aid in the process and calculate the 'benefit' to society of these
killings.[110]
Society
Social welfare
Recent research by academics such as Götz Aly has emphasized the role of the extensive Nazi social welfare
programs that focused on providing employment for German citizens and ensuring a minimal living standard for
German citizens. Heavily focused on was the idea of a national German community or Volksgemeinschaft.[111]
To aid the fostering of a feeling of community, the German people's labour and entertainment experiences—from
festivals, to vacation trips and traveling cinemas—were all made a part of the "Strength Through Joy" (Kraft durch
Freude, KdF) program. Also crucial to the building of loyalty and comradeship was the implementation of the
National Labour Service and the Hitler Youth Organization, with compulsory membership. In addition to this, a
number of architectural projects were undertaken. KdF created the KdF-wagen, later known as the Volkswagen
("People's Car"), which was designed to be an automobile that every German citizen would be able to afford. With
the outbreak of World War II the car was converted into a military vehicle and civilian production was stopped.
Another national project undertaken was the construction of the Autobahn, which made it the first freeway system in
the world.
The Winter Relief campaigns not only collected charity for the unfortunate, but acted as a ritual to generate public
feeling.[112] As part of the centralization of Nazi Germany, posters urged people to donate rather than to give directly
to beggars.[113]
Nazi Germany
26
Racial policy
Further information: The Holocaust and Nazism and race
From the very earliest speeches and writings of Hitler, it was clear that
the Jewish community in Germany were an object of hatred.[115] Nazi
ideology laid down strict rules about who was or was not of pure
"Aryan" blood, actions were set into motion to purify the Aryan
race—which was said to be identical with the Nordic race, followed by
lesser sub-races of the Aryan race to represent an ideal and
pure—master race. On 1 April 1933, Hitler declared a national boycott
of Jewish places of business.[116] Many Jewish families prepared to
leave, but many others hoped that as they were German citizens, their
livelihoods and property would be safe.
Jewish shops were vandalized to warn people not
to buy there
In 1935 the Nuremberg Laws were enacted, depriving Jews of their
German citizenship. Marriage between Jews and Aryans was
forbidden. Further rights were lost over the next few years. Jews were
excluded from many professions and from shopping at many stores.
Many towns posted signs forbidding the entry of Jews.[117]
In November 1938, a young Jewish male in Paris requested an
interview with the German ambassador and was shown in to a meeting
with a legation secretary, whom he shot in protest against the treatment
meted out to his family in Germany. By coincidence, both men were
from Frankfurt and knew each other slightly. The attempt was used by
the Nazi Party to stir up hatred against the Jewish communities in
Germany. The SA was given the task of attacking synagogues and
Jewish property throughout Germany. During Kristallnacht, the Night
of Broken Glass,[118] at least ninety-one German Jews were killed and
Jewish property throughout was destroyed. This phase of exclusion
made it very clear that the Jews in Germany were to be targeted in the
future. To further illustrate, the Jewish communities were fined one
billion marks and told that they would not receive compensation for
their losses.
The effects of Nazi social policy in Germany was divided between
those considered to be "Aryan" and those considered "non-Aryan",
Jewish, or part of other minority groups. For "Aryan" Germans, a
number of social policies put through by the regime to benefit them
were advanced for the time, including state opposition to the use of
tobacco, an end to official stigmatization toward Aryan children who
were born from parents outside of marriage, as well as giving financial
assistance to Aryan German families who bore children.[119]
Naked Soviet POWs in Mauthausen
concentration camp. Between June 1941 and
January 1942, the Nazis killed an estimated 2.8
million Red Army POWs, whom they viewed as
[114]
"subhuman".
Senator Alben W. Barkley, a member of the US
Congressional Nazi crimes committee visiting
Buchenwald concentration camp shortly after its
liberation
The Nazi Party pursued its racial and social policies through persecution and killing of those considered social
undesirables or "enemies of the Reich". Especially targeted were minority groups such as Jews, Romani (also known
as Gypsies), Jehovah's Witnesses,[120] people with mental or physical disabilities and homosexuals.
In the 1930s, plans to isolate and eventually eliminate Jews completely in Germany began with the construction of
ghettos, concentration camps, and labour camps which began with the 1933 construction of the Dachau
concentration camp, which Heinrich Himmler officially described as "the first concentration camp for political
Nazi Germany
prisoners."[121]
In the years following the Nazi rise to power, many Jews were encouraged to leave the country and did so. By the
time the Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935, Jews were stripped of their German citizenship and denied
government employment. Most Jews employed by Germans lost their jobs at this time, which were being taken by
unemployed Germans. Notably, the government attempted to send 17,000 German Jews of Polish descent back to
Poland, a decision which led to the assassination of Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a German Jew living in
France. This provided the pretext for a pogrom the Nazi Party incited against the Jews on 9 November 1938, which
specifically targeted Jewish businesses. The event was called Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass, literally "Crystal
Night"); the euphemism was used because the numerous broken windows made the streets look as if covered with
crystals. By September 1939, more than 200,000 Jews had left Germany, with the government seizing any property
they left behind.
The Nazis also undertook programs targeting "weak" or "unfit" people, such as the T-4 Euthanasia Program, killing
tens of thousands of disabled and sick Germans in an effort to "maintain the purity of the German Master race"
(German: Herrenvolk) as described by Nazi propagandists. The techniques of mass killing developed in these efforts
would later be used in the Holocaust. Under a law passed in 1933, the Nazi regime carried out the compulsory
sterilization of over 400,000 individuals labeled as having hereditary defects, ranging from mental illness to
alcoholism.
Another component of the Nazi programme of creating racial purity was the Lebensborn, or "Fountain of Life"
programme founded in 1935. The programme was aimed at encouraging German soldiers—mainly SS—to
reproduce. This included offering SS families support services (including the adoption of racially pure children into
suitable SS families) and accommodating racially valuable women, pregnant with mainly SS men's children, in care
homes in Germany and throughout Occupied Europe. Lebensborn also expanded to encompass the placing of
racially pure children forcibly seized from occupied countries—such as Poland—with German families.
In 1941 it was decided to destroy the Polish nation completely and the German leadership decided that in 10 to 20
years the Polish state under German occupation was to be fully cleared of any ethnic Poles and settled by German
colonists.[122] The Nazis considered Jews, Romani people, Poles along with other Slavic people like the Russians,
Ukrainians, Czechs and anyone else who was not an "Aryan" according to the contemporary Nazi race terminology
to be Untermenschen ("subhumans"). The Nazis rationalized that the (Aryan) Germans had a biological right to
displace, eliminate and enslave inferiors.[123][124] After the war, under the "Big Plan", Generalplan Ost foresaw the
deportation of 45 million non-Germanizable people from Eastern Europe to West Siberia,[125] and about 14 millions
were to remain, but were to be treated as slaves.[126][127] In their place, Germans would be settled in an extended
lebensraum of the 1000-Year Empire.[128]
Herbert Backe was one of the orchestrators of the Hunger Plan – the plan to starve tens of millions of Slavs in order
to ensure steady food supplies for the German people and troops.[129] In the longer term,[130] the Nazis wanted to
exterminate some 30–45 million Slavs.[131] According to Michael Dorland, "As Yale historian Timothy Snyder
reminds us, had the Nazis succeeded in their war on Russia, the implementation of two further dimensions of the
Holocaust, the Hunger Plan and Generalplan Ost, would have led to the elimination through starvation of an
additional 80 million people in Belarus, northern Russia and the USSR."[132]
At the outset of World War II, the German authority in the General Government in occupied Poland ordered that all
Jews face compulsory labour and that those who were physically incapable such as women and children were to be
confined to ghettos.[133]
To the Nazis, a number of ideas appeared on how to answer the "Jewish Question". One method was a mass forced
deportation of Jews. Adolf Eichmann suggested that Jews be forced to emigrate to Palestine.[133] Franz Rademacher
made the proposal that Jews be deported to Madagascar; this proposal was supported by Himmler and was discussed
by Hitler and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini but was later dismissed as impractical in 1942.[133] The idea of
continuing deportations to occupied Poland was rejected by the governor, Hans Frank, of the General Government of
27
Nazi Germany
28
occupied Poland as Frank refused to accept any more deportations of Jews to the territory which already had large
numbers of Jews.[133] In 1942, at the Wannsee Conference, Nazi officials decided to eliminate the Jews altogether, as
discussed the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question". Concentration camps like Auschwitz were converted and used
gas chambers to kill as many Jews as possible. By 1945, a number of concentration camps had been liberated by
Allied forces and they found the survivors to be severely malnourished. The Allies also found evidence that the
Nazis were profiteering from the mass murder of Jews not only by confiscating their property and personal valuables
but also by extracting gold fillings from the bodies of some Jews held in concentration camps.
Role of women and family
Further information: Women in the Third Reich
Women in the Third Reich were a cornerstone of Nazi social policy. The Nazis opposed the feminist movement,
claiming that it had a left-wing agenda (comparable to Communism) and was bad for both women and men. The
Nazi regime advocated a patriarchal society in which German women would recognize the "world is her husband,
her family, her children, and her home."[134] Hitler claimed that women taking vital jobs away from men during the
Great Depression was economically bad for families in that women were paid only 66 percent of what men
earned.[134] Simultaneously with calling for women to leave work outside the home, the regime called for women to
be actively supportive of the state regarding women's affairs. In 1933, Hitler appointed Gertrud Scholtz-Klink as the
leader of the National Socialist Women's League, which instructed women that their primary role in society was to
bear children and that women should be subservient to men, once saying "the mission of woman is to minister in the
home and in her profession to the needs of life from the first to last moment of man's existence.".[134] The
expectation even applied to Aryan women married to Jewish men—a necessary ingredient in the 1943 Rosenstrasse
protest in which 1800 German women (joined by 4200 relatives) obliged the Nazi state to release their Jewish
husbands. This position was so strongly held as to make it extremely difficult to recruit women for war jobs during
World War II.[135]
The Nazi regime discouraged women from seeking higher education in
secondary schools, universities and colleges. The number of women
allowed to enroll in universities dropped drastically under the Nazi
regime, which shrank from approximately 128,000 women being
enrolled in 1933 to 51,000 in 1938. Female enrollment in secondary
schools dropped from 437,000 in 1926 to 205,000 in 1937. However
with the requirement of men to be enlisted into the German armed
forces during the war, women made up half of the enrollment in the
education system by 1944.[136]
Young women of the BDM practising gymnastics
in 1941
On the other hand, the women were expected to be strong, healthy, and
vital; a photograph subtitled "Future Mothers" showed teenage girls
[137]
dressed for sport and bearing javelins.
A sturdy peasant woman, who worked the land and bore strong children,
was an ideal, contributing to praise for athletic women tanned by outdoor work.[138]
Organizations were made for the indoctrination of Nazi values to German women. Such organizations included the
Jungmädel ("Young Girls") section of the Hitler Youth for girls from the age 10 to 14, the Bund Deutscher Mädel
(BDM, "German Girls' League") for young women from 14 to 18, and the NS-Frauenschaft, a woman's organization.
The NS-Frauenschaft put out the NS-Frauen-Warte, the only approved women's magazine in Nazi Germany.[139]
Despite its propaganda aspects, it was predominantly a woman's magazine,[140] even including sewing patterns.[141]
The BDM's activities encompassed physical education, including running, the long jump, somersaulting, tightrope
walking, rout-marching, and swimming.[142] Das deutsche Mädel was less adventure-oriented than the boy's Der
Pimpf,[143] but far more emphasis was laid on strong and active German women than in NS-Frauen-Warte.[140] Also,
Nazi Germany
29
before entering any occupation or advanced studies, the girls, like the boys in Hitler Youth, had to complete a year of
land service.[144]
Despite the somewhat official restrictions, some women forged highly visible, as well as officially praised,
achievements, such as the aviatrix Hanna Reitsch and film director Leni Riefenstahl.
On the issue of sexual affairs regarding women, Biddiscombe argues the Nazis differed greatly from the restrictive
stances on women's role in society. The Nazi regime promoted a liberal code of conduct as regards sexual matters,
and were sympathetic to women bearing children out of wedlock.[119] The collapse of 19th century morals in
Germany accelerated during the Third Reich, partly due to the Nazis, and greatly due to the effects of the war.
Promiscuity increased greatly as the war progressed, with unmarried soldiers often involved intimately with several
women simultaneously. Married women were often involved in multiple affairs simultaneously, with soldiers,
civilians or slave labourers. "Some farm wives in Württemberg had already begun using sex as a commodity,
employing carnal favours as a means of getting a full day's work from foreign labourers."[119] Nevertheless, publicly,
Nazi propaganda opposed adultery and upheld the sanctity of marriage.[145] Several films shot in this era altered their
source material so that the woman, rather than the man, would suffer death for sexual transgressions, reflecting
whose fault it was held to be.[146] When attempts were made to destigmatize illegitimate births, Lebensborn homes
were presented the public as for married women.[147] Overtly anti-marriage statements, such as Himmler's statements
regarding the care of the illegitimate children of dead soldiers, were greeted with protests.[148] Ilsa McKee noted that
the lectures of Hitler Youth and the BDM on the need to produce more children produced several illegitimate
children, which neither the mothers nor the possible fathers regarded as problematic.[149]
Marriage or sexual relations between a person considered “Aryan” and one that was not were classified as
Rassenschande and were forbidden and under penalty (Aryans found guilty could face incarceration in a
concentration camp, while non-Aryans could face the death penalty). Pamphlets enjoined all German women to
avoid sexual intercourse with all foreign workers brought to Germany as a danger to their blood.[150]
Abortion was heavily penalized in Nazi Germany unless on the grounds of "racial health": from 1943 abortionists
faced the death penalty.[151] Display of contraceptives was not allowed, and Hitler himself described contraception
as "violation of nature, as degradation of womanhood, motherhood and love."[152]
Environmentalism
In 1935, the regime enacted the "Reich Nature Protection Act". While
not a purely Nazi piece of legislation, as parts of its influences
pre-dated the Nazi rise to power, it nevertheless reflected Nazi
ideology. The concept of the Dauerwald (best translated as the
"perpetual forest") which included concepts such as forest management
and protection was promoted and efforts were also made to curb air
pollution.[154][155]
In practice, the enacted laws and policies met resistance from various
ministries that sought to undermine them, and from the priority that the
war-effort took to environmental protection.
Hermann Göring was an animal lover and
[153]
conservationist.
Animal protection policy
The Nazis had elements which were supportive of animal rights, zoos and wildlife,[156] and took several measures to
ensure their protection.[157] In 1933 the government enacted a stringent animal-protection law.[158][159] Many
NSDAP leaders, including Hitler and Göring, were supporters of animal protection. Several Nazis were
environmentalists (notably Rudolf Hess), and species protection and animal welfare were significant issues in the
regime.[160] Himmler made efforts to ban the hunting of animals.[161] Göring was an animal lover and
Nazi Germany
30
conservationist.[162] The current animal welfare laws in Germany are adapted from laws introduced by the National
Socialist regime.[163]
Although enacting various laws for animal protection, there was a lack of enforcement. According to Pfugers Archiv
für die Gesamte Physiologie (Pfugers Archive for the Total Physiology), a science journal at that time, there were
many animal experiments during the Nazi regime.[164] The Nazi regime disbanded several unofficial organizations
advocating environmentalism and animal protection, such as the Friends of Nature.[165]
Culture
The regime sought to restore traditional values in German culture. The art and culture that came to define the
Weimar Republic years was repressed. The visual arts were strictly monitored and traditional, focusing on
exemplifying Germanic themes, racial purity, militarism, heroism, power, strength, and obedience. Modern abstract
art and avant-garde art was removed from museums and put on special display as "degenerate art", where it was to
be ridiculed. In one notable example, on 31 March 1937, huge crowds stood in line to view a special display of
"degenerate art" in Munich. Art forms considered to be degenerate included Dada, Cubism, Expressionism, Fauvism,
Impressionism, New Objectivity, and Surrealism. Literature written by Jewish, other non-Aryans, homosexual or
authors opposed to the Nazis was destroyed by the regime. The most infamous destruction of literature was the book
burnings by German students in 1933.
Despite the official attempt to forge a pure Germanic culture, one
major area of the arts, architecture, under Hitler's personal guidance,
was neoclassical, a style based on architecture of ancient Rome.[166]
This style stood out in stark contrast and opposition to newer, more
liberal, and more popular architecture styles of the time such as Art
Deco. Various Roman buildings were examined by state architect
Albert Speer for architectural designs for state buildings. Speer
constructed huge and imposing structures such as in the Nazi party
rally grounds in Nuremberg and the new Reich Chancellery building in
Berlin. One design that was pursued, but never built, was a gigantic
version of the Pantheon in Rome, called the Volkshalle to be the
semi-religious centre of Nazism in a renamed Berlin called Germania,
which was to be the "world capital" (Welthauptstadt). Also to be
constructed was a Triumphal arch, several times larger than that found
in Paris, which was also based upon a classical styling. Many of the
designs for Germania were impractical to construct because of their
size and the marshy soil underneath Berlin; later the materials that
were to be used for construction were diverted to the war effort.
In 1933, Nazis burned works considered
"un-German" in Berlin which included books by
Jewish authors, political opponents, and other
works which did not align with Nazi ideology.
Cinema and media
The majority of German films of the period were intended principally
as works of entertainment. The import of foreign films was legally
restricted after 1936, and the German industry, which was effectively
nationalised in 1937, had to make up for the missing foreign films
(above all American productions). Entertainment also became
increasingly important in the later years of World War II when the
Nazi propaganda poster: "Danzig is
German".
Nazi Germany
cinema provided a distraction from Allied bombing and a string of German defeats. In both 1943 and 1944 cinema
admissions in Germany exceeded a billion,[167] and the biggest box office hits of the war years were Die große Liebe
(1942) and Wunschkonzert (1941), which both combine elements of the musical, wartime romance and patriotic
propaganda, Frauen sind doch bessere Diplomaten (1941), a comic musical which was one of the earliest German
films in colour, and Wiener Blut (1942), the adaptation of a Johann Strauß comic operetta. The importance of the
cinema as a tool of the state, both for its propaganda value and its ability to keep the populace entertained, can be
seen in the filming history of Veit Harlan's Kolberg (1945), the most expensive film of the era, for the shooting of
which tens of thousands of soldiers were diverted from their military positions to appear as extras.[168]
Despite the emigration of many film-makers and the political restrictions, the German film industry was not without
technical and aesthetic innovations, the introduction of Agfacolor film production being a notable example.
Technical and aesthetic achievement could also be turned to the specific ends of the Greater German Reich, most
spectacularly in the work of Leni Riefenstahl. Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (1935), documenting the Nuremberg
Rally (1934), and Olympia (1938), documenting the 1936 Summer Olympics, pioneered techniques of camera
movement and editing that have influenced many later films. Both films, particularly Triumph of the Will, remain
highly controversial, as their aesthetic merit is inseparable from their propagandizing of Nationalsocialism
ideals.[168] Irreplaceable artists deemed fitting the National socialist ideals such as Marika Rokk and Johannes
Heesters were placed on the Gottbegnadeten list by Goebbels during the war.[169]
Sports
Sports played a central role in the Nazi goal of building strong young athletes to create the "perfect" race and help
build Germany into a sports power. The political symbolism of masses of virile near-naked bodies occupying public
spaces fit easily into the propaganda system, as typified by the 1938 film about the 1936 Berlin Olympics,
"Olympia".[170]
Established in 1934, the "Nationalsozialistischer Reichsbund für Leibesübungen" (known by the acronyms NSRL or
NSRBL) was the umbrella organization for sports during the Third Reich. Two major displays of Nazi German art
and culture were at the 1936 Summer Olympics and at the German pavilion at the 1937 International Exposition in
Paris. The 1936 Olympics was meant to display to the world the Aryan superiority of Germany to other nations.
German athletes were carefully chosen not only for strength but for Aryan appearance.[171]
Legacy
Starting with the Nuremberg Trials of 1945–46,[172] in which top Nazi leaders were tried for war crimes (and
executed or given long prison terms), Hitler, Nazism, and (by the 1960s) the Holocaust became symbols of evil in
the modern world.[173] For the 21st century, Newman and Erber (2002) reported, "The Nazis have become one of the
most widely recognized images of modern evil. Throughout most of the world today, the concept of evil can readily
be evoked by displaying almost any cue reminiscent of Nazism, such as the swastika, the name of any of the
principal Nazis, or their garb or affectations...."[174] There is a high level of historical interest in the popular media as
well as in academic world. Evans says it, "exerts an almost universal appeal because its murderous racism stands as a
warning to the whole of humanity."[175]
The end of Nazi Germany also saw the rise in unpopularity of related aggressive manifestations of nationalism in
Germany such as Pan-Germanism and the Völkisch movement which had previously been significant political ideas
there, and in other parts of Europe, before World War II. Those that remain are largely fringe movements.
31
Nazi Germany
Notes
[1] Neil J. Kressel (2002). Mass Hate: The Global Rise Of Genocide And Terror (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=UfSI6mU2fDIC&
pg=PA121). Basic Books. p. 121. .
[2] Anthony McElligott; Tim Kirk; Ian Kershaw (2003). Working Towards the Führer: Essays in Honour of Sir Ian Kershaw (http:/ / books.
google. com/ books?id=iIWj44s-02AC& pg=PA6). Manchester U.P.. p. 6. .
[3] Robert O. Paxton; Julie Hessler (2011). Europe in the Twentieth Century (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=M5wTncOaHEQC&
pg=PA286). Cengage. p. 286. .
[4] Guntram H. Herb (2008). Nations and Nationalism: A Global Historical Overview (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=2UoQ-ueHjdEC&
pg=PA454). ABC-CLIO. p. 454. .
[5] Stephen J. Lee (1996). Weimar and Nazi Germany (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=eRDg5_Ay_PcC& pg=PA56). Heinemann. p. 56. .
[6] Peter Watson (2002). Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=JVdMSavwwHoC&
pg=PA328). HarperCollins. p. 328. .
[7] Richard Holmes (2009). World War II: The Definitive Visual History (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=H_ginDMhCsMC& pg=PA42).
Penguin. p. 42. .
[8] van Wie, Paul D. (1999). Image, History and Politics: The Coinage of Modern Europe. Lanham, Md: University Press of America ". p. 37.
ISBN 978-0-7618-1221-0.
[9] "Reich" is sometimes also translated as "Realm." See Harper's magazine, Volume 63. Pp. 593.
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Man-Who-Invented-Third-Reich/ dp/ 0750918667). Npi Media Ltd. May 1, 1999. ISBN 978-0-75-091866-4. .
[11] Evans, Richard J. (2005). The Coming of the Third Reich. New York: Penguin. pp. 6–7. ISBN 978-0-14-303469-8.
[12] Goldhagen 1996, p. 87
[13] Goldhagen 1996, pp. 202–203
[14] Kolb 2005, p. 224–225
[15] Ian Kershaw (2000). "10". Hitler, 1889–1936: Hubris. W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-32035-0.
[16] Tipton, Frank, A History of Modern Germany, since 1815, Continuum Press New York, 2003
[17] Cuomo, Glenn R. (1995). National Socialist Cultural Policy. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. p. 231. ISBN 978-0-312-09094-4.
[18] Kershaw 2008, p. 306
[19] Shirer 1960, p. 205
[20] Shirer 1960, p. 219
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[23] Kershaw 2008, p. 314
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[30] Kitchen 2006, p. 271
[31] Kitchen 2006, p. 272
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References
Bibliography
• Beevor, Antony (2002). Berlin: The Downfall 1945. London: Viking-Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-670-03041-5.
• Beevor, Antony (2003) [2002] (paperback). Berlin: The Downfall 1945. New York: Viking-Penguin Books.
ISBN 978-0-14-200280-3.
• DeLong, J. Bradford (February 1997). "Slouching Towards Utopia?: The Economic History of the Twentieth
Century. XV. Nazis and Soviets" (http://econ161.berkeley.edu/TCEH/Slouch_Purge15.html).
econ161.berkeley.edu. University of California at Berkeley. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
• Evans, Richard J. (2005). The Third Reich in Power. New York: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-303790-3.
• Goldhagen, Daniel (1996). Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York:
Knopf. p. 290. ISBN 978-0-679-44695-8.
• Grunberger, Richard (1971). The 12-Year Reich: A Social History of Nazi Germany 1933–1945. New York: Holt
Rinehart and Winston. ISBN 978-0-03-076435-6.
• Kershaw, Ian (2000). The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation (4th ed.). London:
Arnold. ISBN 978-0-340-76028-4.
• Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-06757-6.
• Kitchen, Martin (2006). A History of Modern Germany, 1800–2000. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
ISBN 978-1-4051-0040-3.
• Kolb, Eberhard (2005) [1984]. The Weimar Republic. London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-34441-8.
• Nicholas, Lynn H. (2006). Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web. New York: Vintage.
ISBN 978-0-679-77663-5.
• Overy, Richard (1995). Why The Allies Won. New York: Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-03925-2.
• Pine, Lisa (2011) [2010]. Education in Nazi Germany. Oxford; New York: Berg. ISBN 978-1-84520-265-1.
• Rupp, Leila J. (1978). Mobilizing Women for War: German and American Propaganda, 1939–1945. Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-04649-5. OCLC 3379930.
• Shirer, William L. (1960). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon & Schuster.
ISBN 978-0-671-62420-0.
• "Statistisches Jahrbuch für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland" (http://web.archive.org/web/20070926002255/
http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/Internet/DE/Content/Publikationen/
Querschnittsveroeffentlichungen/StatistischesJahrbuch/Downloads/Jahrbuch2006Inland,property=file.pdf) (in
German). Statistisches Bundesamt. 2006. p. 34. Archived from the original (http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/
portal/cms/Sites/destatis/Internet/DE/Content/Publikationen/Querschnittsveroeffentlichungen/
StatistischesJahrbuch/Downloads/Jahrbuch2006Inland,property=file.pdf) on 26 September 2007. Retrieved 17
March 2012.
Further reading
Surveys and reference works
• Karl Dietrich Bracher. The German Dictatorship; The Origins, Structure, and Effects of National Socialism; New
York, Praeger 1970.
• Michael Burleigh. The Third Reich: A New History, 2002. ISBN 0-8090-9326-X. Standard scholarly history,
1918–1945.
• Richard J. Evans. The Coming of the Third Reich. ISBN 0-14-100975-6, standard scholarly history; The Third
Reich in Power 2005 ISBN 1-59420-074-2; The Third Reich at war 1939–1945 (2009)
• Christian Leitz, ed. The Third Reich: The Essential Readings. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. ISBN
0-631-20700-7.
37
Nazi Germany
• Mommsen, Hans. The Third Reich between Vision and Reality: New Perspectives on German History, 1918–1945
(2001) online edition (http://www.questia.com/read/104090875)
• Overy, Richard. The Dictators: Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia (2004)
• Roderick, Stacke. Hitler's Germany: Origins, Interpretations, Legacies (1999)
• Scheck, Raffael. “Lecture Notes, Germany and Europe, 1871–1945” (2008) full text online (http://www.colby.
edu/personal/r/rmscheck/Contents.html), a brief textbook by a leading scholar
• William L. Shirer. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. ISBN 0-671-72868-7
• Zentner, Christian and Bedürftig, Friedemann, eds. The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. 2 vol. Macmillan, 1991.
1120 pp.
Economics
• Overy, R. J. The Nazi Economic Recovery 1932–1938 (1996)
• Adam Tooze. The Wages of Destruction: The Making and the Breaking of the Nazi Economy. New York: Viking,
2006. ISBN 978-0-670-03826-8.
• Henry Ashby Turner. German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
ISBN 0-19-503492-9.
• Alfred Sohn-Rethel. Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism. London, CSE Bks, 1978. ISBN
0-906336-00-7
Hitler
• Bullock, Alan. Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, (1962) online edition (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&
d=55427796)
• Geary, Dick. Hitler and Nazism, (2000) 97 pages
• Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, 1889–1936: Hubris. vol. 1. 1999. 700 pp. ; vol 2: Hitler, 1936–1945: Nemesis. 2000. 832
pp.; the leading scholarly biography.
• Kershaw, Ian. The "Hitler Myth": Image and Reality in the Third Reich. (1987). 297 pp.
• Nicholls, David. Adolf Hitler: A Biographical Companion. ABC-CLIO, 2000. 344 pp.
Holocaust, ideology and racism
• Gisela Bock "Racism and Sexism in Nazi Germany: Motherhood, Compulsory Sterilization, and the State" from
When Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany edited by Renate Bridenthal, Atina
Grossmann, and Marion Kaplan, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1984.
• Friedlander, Saul. Nazi Germany and the Jews: Volume 1: The Years of Persecution 1933–1939 (1998); The
Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939–1945 (2007), the standard history
• Gilbert, Martin. The Routledge Atlas of the Holocaust (2002)
• Heinz Höhne. The Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS. Translated by Richard Barry. London:
Penguin Books, 1971.
• Claudia Koonz. The Nazi Conscience. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003.
• Niewyk, Donald, and Francis Nicosia. The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust. (2000) online edition (http://www.
questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=99854126&oplinknum=4)
• Detlev Peukert. Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition and Racism in Everyday Life. London: Batsford,
1987. ISBN 0-7134-5217-X.
• Florian Ruhs: Foreign Workers in the Second World War. The Ordeal of Slovenians in Germany. (http://www.
aventinus-online.de/no_cache/persistent/artikel/8599/), in: aventinus nova Nr. 32 [29.05.2011].
Leadership
• Martin Broszat. The Hitler State: The Foundation and Development Of The Internal Structure Of The Third
Reich. Translated by John W. Hiden. London: Longman, 1981. ISBN 0-582-49200-9.
• Guido Knopp. Hitler's Henchmen. 1998. Sutton Publishing, 2005. ISBN 0-7509-3781-5.
• Frank McDonough, Hitler and the Rise of The Nazi Party, Pearson Longman, 2003.
38
Nazi Germany
• Anthony Read. The Devils Disciples: The Devil's Disciples: Hitler's Inner Circle. W. W. Norton & Co., 2003.
ISBN 0-393-04800-4.
• Ronald Smelser and Rainer Zitelmann, The Nazi Elite New York University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-8147-7950-6.
Local and regional
• William Sheridan Allen. The Nazi Seizure of Power : the Experience Of A Single German Town, 1922–1945 New
York: F. Watts, 1984. ISBN 0-531-09935-0.
• Paul Garson. Album of the Damned: Snapshots from the Third Reich 2008 ISBN 978-0-89733-576-8, Academy
Chicago Publishers
Military and foreign policy
• Sir John Wheeler-Bennett. The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics 1918–1945, Palgrave
Macmillan: London: 1953, 1964, 2005 ISBN 1-4039-1812-0.
• Andreas Hillgruber Germany and the two World Wars, Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1981 ISBN
0-674-35321-8.
• David Irving. Hitler's War. London: Focal Point Publications. ISBN 1-872197-10-8.
• Norman Rich. Hitler's War Aims: Ideology, the Nazi State, and the Course of Expansion. vol. 1. 1972. 352 pp.;
vol. 2: Hitler's War Aims: The Establishment of the New Order. 1974. 548 pp.; definitive analysis of Nazi German
war aims in World War II.
Resistance
• Hamerow, Theodore S. On the Road to the Wolf's Lair: German Resistance to Hitler (1997) 454 pages
• R. P. Heller. The Flame of Freedom: The German Struggle against Hitler. (1994) focus on Army online edition
(http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=93789256#)
• Roger Moorhouse. Killing Hitler. London: Jonathan Cape, 2006. ISBN 0-224-07121-1.
• Thomsett, Michael C. The German Opposition to Hitler: The Resistance, the Underground, and Assassination
Plots, 1938–1945 (2nd ed 2007) 278 pages
Society and culture
• Cosner, Shaaron and Cosner, Victoria. Women under the Third Reich: A Biographical Dictionary. Greenwood,
1998. 203 pp.
• Richard Grunberger. A Social History of the Third Reich 1974 ISBN 0-14-013675-4.
• Claudia Koonz. Mothers In The Fatherland: Women, the Family, and Nazi Politics. New York: St. Martin's Press,
1987. ISBN 0-312-54933-4.
• Eric Michaud, The Cult of Art in Nazi Germany, translated by Janet Lloyd, Stanford: Stanford University Press,
2004. ISBN 0-8047-4327-4.
• Rempel, Gerhard. Hitler's Children: The Hitler Youth and the SS, (1989) online edition (http://www.questia.
com/PM.qst?a=o&d=94862712)
• David Schoenbaum Hitler's Social Revolution; Class and Status in Nazi Germany, 1933–1939, Garden City, N.Y.
Doubleday, 1966.
• Stibbe, Matthew. Women in the Third Reich, 2003, 208 pp.
39
Nazi Germany
External links
Wikimedia Atlas of Germany
•
•
•
•
Germany (http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/Europe/Germany/) at the Open Directory Project
The Third Reich (http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=31)
Third Reich in Ruins (http://www.thirdreichruins.com/index.htm) (Photos)
Lebendiges Museum Online (http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/nazi/index.html) (German)
40
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28421u2232nfenfcenc, 2D, 2ichar98, 3 Löwi, 48Lugur, 4twenty42o, 52 Pickup, 6.27, 62.253.64.xxx, 8.253, 8HGasma, A.S. Brown, A455bcd9, A520, ACSE, AI, AJWittenberg, ANNRC,
AOCJedi, AaronBagelyIsCool, Abbamanic, Abe Lincoln, Ablack, Academic Challenger, Ace ETP, Acha1993, Adam Bishop, Adam Keller, AdamW, Adambiswanger1, Adambro, Adamsmat000,
Addshfhbfabhafbhfv, Addshore, Adolf Oompapa, Afabbro, After Midnight, Afudge, Agentbla, Agonyiconi, Aguyonearth, Aherunar, Ahoerstemeier, Aimsplode, Airbornelawyer, Aj4444, Ajd,
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Andre Engels, Andreas D.C., Andrelvis, AndresHerutJaim, Andrew anahi, AndrewHowse, Android Mouse, Andy M. Wang, Andy120290, AndyTheGrump, Andyjsmith, Andymc, Angel
caboodle, Angela, Angiest, Angr, Angus Lepper, Animum, Ann O'nyme, Anon.cb, Anonymous Dissident, Anonymous anonymous, Anonymous from the 21st century, Antandrus, Anyep,
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42
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