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HI 224
Raffael Scheck
Colby College
(4)
Establishing a Dictatorship
The Hitler Cabinet: Success of
Papen’s Taming Strategy?

Only three Nazis and ten conservative allies
–
BUT: Nazis have important posts (chancellor,
interior, Goering as minister without portfolio,
soon Prussian interior minister)
Papen as vice-chancellor
 Hugenberg (DNVP-leader) as coalition
partner
 Hindenburg still President

Terror

Goering’s measures as Prussian Interior
Minister
–
–
–
Fires 22 of 32 police presidents
Hires SA as “auxiliary police”
Result: massive wave of terror particularly
against communists (25,000 arbitrary arrests)
Reichstag fire
 Concentration camps
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Legal Measures
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Reichstag Fire Decree (23 February 1933)
New Elections (5 March 1933)
Enabling Act (23 March 1933); opposed only by
SPD (Otto Wels)
Dissolution of all other parties until July 1933
Gleichschaltung (Synchronization)
Konkordat with Papacy
Dismissal of all Jews in the civil service
Election Results March 1933
300
250
KPD
SPD
DDP
C/BVP
DVP
DNVP
Nazis
Others
200
150
100
50
0
March 1933
Why did the Hitler Dictatorship
Win Much Public Acceptance?
Massive reduction of unemployment and
rapid economic recovery
 Semblance of order, stability, and peace
once the wave of terror subsides (July 1933)
 Many non-Nazis collaborated in hopes of
having a mitigating influence on Hitler
 There is no alternative

Building up German Hegemony
in Central Europe
1933-39
Final Steps Toward a Legal
Dictatorship
Elimination of the SA leadership, 30 June
1934 („night of long knives“)
 Hitler appoints himself „Führer of the
German People“ after Hindenburg‘s death
(2 August 1934)
 Plebiscites

Unemployment 1932-39
6000
5000
4000
Unemployed (in
thousands):
Yearly averages
3000
2000
1000
0
32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39
Military Spending 1932-39
40000
35000
30000
25000
Military
Expenditure (in
million marks)
20000
15000
10000
5000
0
32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39
Hitler’s Foreign Policy Goals

The REAL goal:
Lebensraum in Eastern
Europe; huge and crude
genetic engineering
project (upgrading the
“Aryan” race)
Do NOT write
„liebensraum“!
The professor

The PERCEIVED
goal: revision of the
wrongs of Versailles
Hitler‘s Foreign Policy 1933-39
Defiance of Versailles, but with limited risk
 Mixed messages: declaration of peaceful
intentions mixed with threats and bullying
 Search for allies
 Massive rearmament
 Decisive step: break of Munich Agreement
through the invasion of Czechoslovakia,
March 1939

Main Events of German
Foreign Policy 1933-39
October 1933
Withdrawal from the League of Nations
March 1935
June 1935
Reintroduction of the draft; air force
buildup announced
Anglo-German Naval Treaty
March 1936
Remilitarization of the Rhineland
Summer 1936
Alliance Germany-Italy-Japan; support for
General Franco in Spain
Anschluss: annexation of Austria
March 1938
September 1938
March 1939
Munich Conference: annexation of the
Sudetenland
Annexation of the rest of Czecho-Slovakia
Reasons for Hitler‘s Success?
Remorse about Versailles among the victors
 Longer economic crisis and slower
economic recovery in France and Britain
 Disillusionment with war among the victors
 British concern about Italy and Japan

The International Reaction
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Containment (1933-35): efforts to build antiGerman alliances (Stresa Front with Italy, April
1935; pact between France and the Soviet Union)
Appeasement (1935-38): concessions to Hitler
hoping that he would voluntarily recognize a just
revision of Versailles
Confrontation (1939): recognition that Hitler
cannot be appeased. Rapid rearmament and
guarantee treaties for Poland and Rumania
Blitz Victories
1939-1941
The Start of the World War II
Hitler‘s desire for war
 The Hitler-Stalin Pact (August 1939)
 The German Attack on Poland (1 September
1939)
 British and French declarations of war (3
September 1939)

Blitzkrieg

Rapid Victories:
–
–
–
–

Poland (Sept. 1939)
Denmark and Norway (April-May 1940)
France and Benelux countries (May-June 1940)
Yugoslavia and Greece (April-May 1941)
What was Blitzkrieg?
–
–
–
–
–
Rapid move of concentrated motorized forces
Air attacks to support these moves
Breakthrough at strategically crucial points
Element of surprise
Economic benefits
Total War
1941-1945
Why did Hitler Attack the Soviet
Union?
Hope to bring Britain to the peace table
 Conflicts with the Soviet Union (Finland;
Rumania)
 Ideological motivation (Lebensraum)
 Expectation of quick victory

Why did the Attack on the Soviet
Union Fail?
Depth of territory
 Determined resistance
 Underestimation of Soviet industrialization
 German treatment of civilian population

The German Defeat
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No compromise peace
Decisive: vast numerical inferiority and massively
overextended fronts
Defeat in the Soviet Union
War with the United States
Defeat of the submarines, March-May 1943
Defeat in North Africa, May 1943
Allied landings in France, June 1944
Bombing campaign against Germany
The Nazi State, Industry, and
Society
The State

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Hitler: a strong dictator - „Working toward the Führer“
(Kershaw). Charismatic rule with a radicalizing dynamic
Primary instrument of Hitler‘s power: the SS under
Heinrich Himmler
Corruption at the lower levels of the party and state
administration (Gauleiter)
Crucial: Hitler was always much more popular than the
party and Nazi ideology. He was often liked for things he
did not condone and dissociated from unpopular measures
(„if only the Führer knew“). HITLER MYTH
Industry


Promotion of cars. The Volkswagen - Germany‘s
answer to Ford
Heavy focus on rearmament. Hence: financial
shortages and weak consumer sector
Society

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The claim of Volksgemeinschaft (people‘s
community): practicing social solidarity
The realities of Volksgemeinschaft
–
–
–
–
–
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Discontent among the peasants
The workers: working hard for little money
Women: pushed out of the labor market, and then
begged to come back
Boys and girls: focus on athletics
The churches (Lutherans: official church and
Confessing Church; Konkordat with the Pope)
Priorities: war preparation and racial policy
The Dark Sides of the
Volksgemeinschaft
Not everybody is equal
 Discrimination against Jews
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–
–
–
–

2000 anti-Jewish laws 1933-1945
April boycott 1933
Dismissal from public service jobs and industry
(1933)
Nürnberg Laws (1935)
Discrimination against Sinti and Roma
Upgrading the Germans
Forced sterilization and abortion
 Euthanasia, 1939-45; protest by Bishop von
Galen
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Slave Labor
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Seven million forced laborers in Nazi Germany in
1944
1.5 million French POWs
„Voluntary“ laborers from France
Italian „Military Internees“ after 1943 (ca.
600,000)
Concentration camp inmates (altogether 2.5-3.5
million) with high mortality (around half a
million)
Separation of foreigners from Germans
Racial Murder
The Three Phases on the Road to
Mass Murder
1. Restriction and Segregation 1933-38
(Nürnberg Laws, 1935)
 2. Expulsion and exclusion 1938-41 (Night of
Broken Glass, 1938)
 3. Extermination 1939/41-45 (Euthanasia
program; genocide)

Questions
Why did this happen?
 Who was responsible?
 Discussion?

The End of the War
The Allied Bombing Campaign
against Germany
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British aim: to „de-house“ the working class and
inspire uprisings: area bombardment of large cities
by night
American aim: to hit industrial plant and
infrastructure: precision bombing by day
Ultimately: terror bombing by both air forces
Hamburg firestorm, July 1943
Destruction of all German and Austrian cities.
Example: Dresden, February 1945
Bombing of Germany
1200
1000
800
Total (in 1000 tons)
RAF
USAF
600
400
200
0
1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945
Bombing by Month 1944-45
180
160
140
120
100
Total
RAF
USAF
80
60
40
20
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4
Yearly Average by Month
*1945: January through April
120
100
80
60
Total
40
20
0
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945*
The German Reaction
Indifference of Hitler and the other Nazi
leaders
 Priority on „revenge weapons“
 Delayed development of ME 262
 Crumbling of Hitler Myth, but also new
field for NSDAP support activity and
propaganda

The End: Inferno
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Hitler incapable of averting defeat and fanatically
unwilling to surrender
Soviet atrocities
Giant refugee movement from east to west
Wilhelm Gustloff disaster
Attacks on civilians by low-flying fighter planes
Local resistance to national suicide
German POWs
The German Resistance
The German Resistance
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Conditions, Definitions,
Motivations
Communist resistance
– Workers
– Harro and Libertas SchulzeBoysen
Christian resistance
– Bonhoeffer
– Niemöller
The White Rose
The bomb plot
– Stauffenberg
– Ulrich von Hassell

My father’s cousin August
Nitschke: