Download Totalitarianism: Germany`s Third Reich

Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich
Section 20.104
The Rise of Adolf Hitler
• Born 1889
• Not an intellectual (like Mussolini
before WWI)
• Never a socialist
• Father was Austrian customs
officials
• Died when Hit was 14
• Mother passed soon after
• Dropped out of HS at 16
• Attempted to get into Academy of
Fine Arts in Vienna but rejected
• A drifter, postcard painter
Hitler’s Dislikes
• In Vienna he developed a hatred for:
– the Habsburg court, snobby
nobility, Mixed (Hybridization)
nationalities, Leftist (Marxism)
leanings of Austrian workers, Jews
(who had risen to prominent
positions in the liberal government
and assimilated into German
culture)
• Extremely race conscious and prided
himself (incorrectly) as a pure
German (Aryan)
• Also hated Capitalism, Socialism,
Internationalism
Nazi Origins
• Moved to Munich in 1913, capital of
Bavaria
• Volunteered for German army
• Served as dispatch runner to front line
• Victim of gas attack and was
temporarily blinded and unable to speak
• Only rose to corporal but was awarded
military medals
• Viewed was as thrilling, noble,
liberating
• War gave Hit a sense of purpose, a
higher cause
• Peace was boring
Nazi Origins Continued
• Munich of 1919 was hotbed of socialist and
anti socialist activity
• Bavarian Soviet Republic last only 3 weeks
• Secret societies and paramilitary
organizations led by discontented army
officers agitated
• Hitler at the army behest joined the small
party called the German Workers’ party
and became its leader
– Was urged to join as a way of
combating socialist and democratic
propaganda among vets and workers
• Nazis (from the German way of
pronouncing 1st 2 syllables of National
Treaty of Versailles
Weimar’s Failure to Democratize
• Government born cursed
• Versailles, peace, reparations, hyperinflation of
1923
• Did not inaugurate deep social changes that may of
democratized German society
• Communist and more dangerous monarchist and
antirepublican armed bands threatened
– Kapp putsch of 1920
– Murdered Walter Rathenau in 1922
• Had organized German production during
eh war and was foreign minister
• Democratic and Jewish
– Matthias Erzberger, moderate of Catholic
Center party who had “stabbed” the army in
the back by signing Versailles
• Brownshirts (or Stormtroopers) was one of these
private armies
The “Beer Hall Putsch”
• French army occupied the Ruhr in
1923 to collect reparations
• Germans were indignant
• Hitler and the Nazis denounced
Weimar for its weakness and tried to
seize power
• Used the “March to Rome” as their
model
• Beer hall putsch in Munich
• Hitler gave impassioned speech on
platform of a beer hall (fired gun into
ceiling)
– Said “national revolution has
broken out”
– Quickly suppressed by the police
– Hitler sentenced to 5 years (only
served 1)
Mein Kampf
• My Struggle
• Stream of personal recollections,
racism, nationalism, collectivism,
historical interpretation, antiSemitism, politics
• Sold widely
• Book + 5 week trial put Hitler in jail;
gave him national prominence
• Supported by General Ludendorff
• Nazis lost their steam as Dawes Plan
fueled economic revival
• But in ’29 the Great Depression hit
and the lunatic fringe put Hitler in
stratosphere of Napoleon
The Crisis Confronting Germany
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Germany was hardest hit by GD
Foreign loans stopped or recalled
Unemployment = 6 million
Middle class (still reeling from ’23) lost
faith in government and economy
Communist gained ground
Middle class looked for an alternative to
Bolshevism
Hatred and blame placed on Versailles
Democracy itself (ideology that wholly
satisfied none and crushed none) seemed
foreign and un-German
Hitler’s Propaganda
• Stirred resentment against Versailles,
Weimar democracy
• Called for true democracy of the Volk
• Lumped all Leftist together and claimed
that his was the true socialism
• Denounced war profiteers, big business
• Denounced Jews (only 600 thousand in all
Germany) & played on nation’s lowest
common denominator
• 1930= Won 107 seats in Reichstag
• 6.5 million voted for them
• 7/1932= had 230 seats (far from a
majority)
• Main political rival were the communists
– Had 100 seats in 11/’32
Hitler Named Chancellor
• Conservatives (Rhineland steel magnates,
industrialist, nationalists, aristocrats, Junkers, army
officers) believed that they could use and control
Hitler
– In spite of his anti-capitalistic ranting
– Franz von Papen and General Kurt von
Schleicher (both had lost chancellorships)
prevailed upon President Paul von Hindenburg to
name Hitler chancellor of a coalition cabinet
– 1/30/1933 Hitler legally became chancellor of
German Republic
– Hitler’s call for new elections were halted as a
mysterious fire burned down the Reichstag
building
– Nazis blamed the Communists
– Red Scare used as excuse to suspend freedom of
speech, press
– Brownshirts frightened population
– With the backing of Nationalist the Nazis had 52
of the votes and gave Hitler dictatorial powers
(national emergency)
The Nazi State
• Hit called new order the Third Reich
– 1st was Holy Roman Empire
– 2nd empire of Bismarck
– Said the 3rd was outgrowth and
natural historical culmination and
would last 1 thousand years
• Took title of Leader (Fuhrer)
• Claimed to embody the sovereignty of the
German people
• Democracy, parliamentarianism,
liberalism were labeled as Jewish and
therefore un-German
• Classified anyone with one Jewish
grandparent as Jewish
• Drove them from public office, civil
service, teaching
Anti-Semitism
• Nuremberg laws of 1935 deprived them of
citizenship and forbade intermarriage
• Kristallnacht (11/9/38) “night of broken
glass”
• A 17 year old Polish Jewish student
assassinated a German diplomat in Paris
• Storm troopers smashed and looted
Jewish stores, synagogues and beat up
thousands
• 30 thousand were sent off to concentration
camps
• Government issued Billion mark fine of
the Jewish community for provoking the
assault and collected the insurance
payments for property damage
• US and Europe closed their doors to those
who wanted to flee Germany
Coordinating German Society
• Totalitarian state eliminated other parties, old states (Prussia,
Bavaria)
• Nazi party purged itself (6/30/34)
• Old Brownshirts were accused of plotting against Hitler and
were executed
• Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei) was a secret political police who
with the People’s Courts suppressed decent and imprisoned
thousands in concentration camps
• Church leaders under state control
• Old Teutonic gods were resurrected & worshipped
• Nazi Youth Movement & schools indoctrinated new generation
• National Labor Front replaced labor unions
• “leadership principle” set up employers as mini- Fuhrers
• Public works projects eliminated unemployment
• Strength Through Joy subsidized low incomes with paid
vacations, entertainment
Economic Autarky and Self-Sufficiency
• Four Year Plan (1936)
• Other nations in the Great Depression
followed policy of economic nationalism
• But Nazis sought complete independence
from foreign trade
• Chemist developed artificial rubber
(Buna), plastics, synthetic textiles
• Planned to eliminate trade barriers
(tariffs) by relegating neighboring
countries to dependence on Germany
products or by conquering them outright
• Germany was transformed into a war
machine with Hitler viewed as a savior
• “Today Germany, tomorrow the whole
world.”
Totalitarianism: Some Origins and
Consequences
• Term 1st used by Mussolini but his
regime was not as all
encompassing to merit it
• 1st appeared in Bolshevik
Revolution
• Appearance after WWI was not a
historical accident
• State had been gathering power
since the Middle Ages, assumed
jurisdiction over law courts,
armies, taxes, religion, economic
activity, education, infrastructure
• 20th century totalitarian state was
monolithic and insinuated itself on
all aspects of life
Reliance on Historic Nationalism
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Tot greatly exaggerated historic nationalism
Rejected individualism (liberalism)
Promoted organic theory of society
The state was a living organism and the individual
was a cell
The individual had no independent existence but
received life from the nation (state)
Individual “reason” or “freedom” or opinions were
meaningless
Claimed that event science was different
– Nazi science v Bourgeoisie science
– Soviets dialectic materialism v capitalistic
science
Ideas of truth, beauty, morality were determined
by the people
– Enlightenment concepts of natural law, reason,
unalienable rights, progress of mankind were
gone
Propaganda
• Totalitarian regimes sought to shape
people’s minds
• Had existed but now became total
• Formerly ideas were suppressed via
censorship of books, people
• Tot manufactured thought
• Manipulated opinion and rewrote history
• Books, newspapers encouraged whole
ideologies
• Loudspeakers blared in streets
• Billboard size posters of the Fuhrer
appeared everywhere
• Constant repetition fostered the belief in
the most fantastic rubbish
• People actually began to lose ability to use
reason
Racism
• Defined the nation in a tribal sense (a biological
entity) with people sharing a common ancestry
• Anti-Semitism was present since the Middle
Ages but Nazis Anti-Sem had nothing to do with
religion
• Jews had risen to prominent positions
• Propagandist used Jews as a means of getting
“racial pure” forget real problems of poverty,
unemployment
• Made differences b/t rich and poor seem
unimportant
• Blamed problems on “outside” forces and
placed dictator up as indispensable unifier of all
classes
– Trotskyism, imperialism, international Jewry
• Blamed economic disparities on other countries
and made war seem like a solution for social ills
The Glorification of Violence
• Use and glorification of violence is
most glaring difference b/t
democracies and Tot
• The cult of violence (struggle)
emerged before WWI and was
nurtured by war
• Bolsheviks used war to gain power
• Muss used the threat of Revolution to
seize power
• 1920s in most civilized nations of
Europe private armies marched,
bullied, and murdered with impunity
• By 1930 torture would return
The Cult of the Body
• Ethically it was violent and neopagan
• Distorted Nietzsche's philosophy which
called for people to get off their laurels
and live dangerously
• Hitler Youth
• Played on the juvenile idea that by
joining a group, wearing a uniform, and
exercising in the outdoors the nation
would be rise
• Body Cult= Physical toughness,
procreation were encouraged
• Euthanasia was adopted to rid the ill,
aged and insane
• Eugenics were used to explain apparent
differences b/t the races and rationalize
the extermination of lesser races
The Spread of Dictatorship
• 1938 only 10 of 27 European nations remained democratic
– Included GB, Fran, Holland, Bel, Swit, Czech, Fin, Den, Nor, Swed
• Why?
• Weak democratic traditions + Poor education + power of reactionaries +
Red Scare + discontented national minorities + economic depression
• Generic fascism emerged in Portugal, Spain, Latin America
– Strong central leader, Military supported government, One party
systems, repressed individual liberties, abolishment of parliamentary
institutions
• Corporative state organization
– Outlawing labor organization
• Acceptance and glorification of violence
• War was a noble thing
• Love a peace a sign of decadence
• Recurrent international crises paved the way to war in ‘39