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Hitler and Nazi Germany
McKay 966-971, Palmer 20.104
The Origins of Nazi Germany
German
Empire
declared
Germany
declares war
on Russia
-WWI
-Beer Hall
Putsch
-Hyperinflation
-Mein Kampf
1871 1890 1914 1918 1922 1929 1933
Wilhelm II
“drops the
pilot”
Germany
surrenders
-Diktat at
Versailles
Stock
Market
Crash leads
to
worldwide
depression
Hitler
becomes
Chancellor
of Germany
1939
Germany
invades
Poland
-WWII
begins
The German Empire (1871-1918)
• Germany’s national character
embraced Prussian militarism/
respect for authority since 1871
• Germany’s democratic
institutions (Reichstag) had
never matured
– “Iron and Blood”
discredited liberals
– Bismarck’s Realpolitik
manipulated masses
• Social Democrats elected 110
members to the Reichstag in
1912
– 1912 largest party in
Reichstag
– Yet held none of the highest
government offices
What’s the Take Away
• German liberal and democracy
never matured
The Weimar Republic’s Inauspicious Beginnings
• Formed November 9, 1918
• Parliamentary republican form of
government comprised of social democrats
• Issued decrees guaranteeing eight-hour
workday, labor & agricultural reform,
union recognition , social welfare relief ,
national health insurance, universal
suffrage
• Spartacist uprising
– A general strike & attempted coup
– led by communists Karl Liebknecht, &
Rosa Luxemburg against the Weimar
Republic
– Weimar government used Freikorps to
suppress it
• Captured, tortured and murdered
Liebknecht and Luxemburg
• Freikorps= Ex-WWI right-winged
anti-republic soldiers
Weimar Republic (1918-1933)
• Original Sin of Weimar
• Signed Treaty of Versailles
– Known as Diktat - “dictated peace”
– Article 231 (War Guilt Clause) humiliated proud
country
• Reparations
– $ 30 billion
– gov. began to print more paper marks
– Led to hyperinflation of 1923
– 1914- 4 marks = $1
Otto Dix, “We Want Bread”
– 1923- 4 trillion marks = $1
A crowd of demonstrators
• Effects
marches in the street. One carries
a declaration of their needs. His
– helped big businessmen pay off loans
– Crushed the savings of the middle & lower classes sign reads, "We want bread!" The
crowd can be seen through the
• Economy stabilized with help of Dawes Plan
window of an elegant cafe. The
– Germany experienced a “Roaring Twenties” from patrons are elegantly dressed and
1923-1929
shipping champagne. Despite the
• But Weimar was forever tainted with treaty of Versailles ruckus in the street, they are
– November Criminals stabbed the army in the back oblivious to those outside.
• Communist Jews who betrayed the German army
during WWI by surrendering
Treaty of Versailles
Germany after WWI
Background of Adolf Hitler
•
•
•
•
Born 1889 in Austria to Alois Schicklgruber (later
Hitler) and Klara Pölzl
Father was Austrian customs officials
– Wanted Hitler to follow in footsteps
– Quarreled often with Adolf
– Died suddenly in 1903 (fluid in lungs) when Hitler
was 13
Adolph
– Not a good student but liked history (German)
– Dreamed of becoming a priest, then an artist
– Klara death of breast cancer in 1907 devastated
Hitler
• Hitler later allowed Dr. Block (Jewish) to
escape Austria to US
– Dropped out of HS at 16 &Given orphan’s pension
Attempted to get into Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna
but rejected
– Became a drifter, postcard painter
Background of Adolf Hitler
• Vienna
– Culturally diverse city
• Germans, Italians, Croats,
Poles, Jews
• Hitler
– Rejected for Academy
– Lived in boarding house
– developed a hatred for:
• the Habsburg court
• Bourgousie
Naschmarkt Wien (Market in Vienna, 1900
• Mixed (Hybridization)
nationalities
• Marxism
• Especially Jews
• Karl Lueger
Austrian cartoon - JANUARY
– the anti-Semitic mayor of Vienna
01: Karl Lueger: 'Do I look like
influenced Hitler
I would eat Jews?'
World War I
• Broke out in August 1914 following Sarajevo
crisis, Blank Check
• Hitler crossed border and joined 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
– Iron Cross
• Viewed war as thrilling, noble, liberating
– sense of purpose, a higher cause
– Influence of Nietzsche glorification of
struggle
• Shocked by the armistice in November 1918
The Birth of the Nazis
• Post WWI Munich
– hotbed of socialist and anti socialist activity
• Hitler was hired as provocateur (spy) by army
to infiltrate radical groups
• Freikorps
– Secret societies and paramilitary
organizations led by discontented army
officers agitated
– Brownshirts (or Stormtroopers) formed by
Ex Officers were one of these private
armies
• Hitler
– joined the small party called the German
Workers’ party and became its leader
– Added National Socialist to its name
– Nazis (from the German way of
pronouncing 1st 2 syllables of National
The Birth of the Nazis
The “Beer Hall Putsch”
• French army occupied the Ruhr in 1923 to
collect reparations
– Took tons of coal as payment
– Forced Germans to walk in gutter/ remove
their hats in presence of French soldiers
– Germans were humilitated
• Hitler
– denounced Weimar for its weakness
– thought time was ripe to a putsch
(overthrow of government)
– Used the “March to Rome” as 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)
Defendants in the Beer Hall Putsch trial.
The Beer Hall Putsch
Mein Kampf
• While in jail Hitler wrote an autobiography, Mein
Kampf (My Struggle)
• Stream of personal recollections, racism,
nationalism, collectivism, historical interpretation,
anti-Semitism, politics
– Expounds main thesis of "the Jewish peril”
(World Wide Jewish conspiracy)
– Twin Evils (Communism & Judaism)
– Openly states Germany’s destiny lies Eastward
• Drang nach Osten (Yearning toward the
East)
• Book + 5 week trial gave Hitler national
prominence
• Supported by General Ludendorff
• Nazi movement lost appeal after Dawes Plan fueled
economic revival
• But in ’29 the Great Depression hit and the lunatic
fringe put Hit in stratosphere of Napoleon
NAZIS Ideology
• Nationalism
– Master Race
• Aryan Race were superior humans
• Preached Germans (Blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryans) were
chosen people
• Forbade intermixing of Aryans with Untermensch
– Rassenschande (race defilement) laws
• Untermensch (subhumans)
– Jews, Gypsies, Slavic race were inferior
– Germania Irredentism
• German lands and peoples taken after WWI must be
redeemed to the Fatherland
– Lebensraum
• God given right of Master Race to spread itself into more
living space to the Ural Mountains
• Sex and Gender
– Women excluded from politics
– Woman’s Sphere
• "Kinder, Küche, Kirche" (Children, Kitchen, Church).
– Homosexual German men were forced to “change” or be forced
to concentration camps
"Fellow Germans
who engage in
sexual relations
with male or
female civil
workers of the
Polish
nationality,
commit other
immoral acts or
engage in love
affairs shall be
arrested
immediately."
Water Sports (1936) by Albert Janesh
Reflects Nazi theme of athleticism
Farm Family from Kahlenberg (1939) by Adolph Wissel
Nazi Folk Art idealizing simple rural life
Nazi Ideology
• Anti-Semiticism
– Central creed of Nazism
was Jewish Peril
• World Wide conspiracy
amongst Jews to
control financial
institutions
• German Jews had risen to
prominent positions in
Germany
– Well integrated into
bourgeoisie society
• Eastern European Jews were
often part of lower classes
– Lived in Shtetl (small
villages) in the “Pale of
Settlement”
– Spoke Yiddish
A Shtetl in Lakhva, Poland
Nazi Ideology
• Religion
– Used Christianity for propaganda
– Claimed Jesus was actually an Aryan, not
Jewish
– Used Martin Luther’s anti-Semitism
– Hostile to Catholic church at first but singed a
Concordat in 1933
• Cahtolic Church allowed German
Catholics to join Nazi party
• Economics
– Anti Capitalist
• Selfish individualism exploiting the
worker
– Anti Communist
• Godless economic system of Russian
Slavs
– Favored a neo Mercantile System
• German would use conquered territories
for their resources in order to become self
sufficient
Nazi Ideology
• Hitler Youth
– made up German children aged 14 to
18
– Paramilitary organization meant to
indoctrine the next generation of
Nazis
– Rooted in Turnvater Jahn
gymnasiums and Prussian culture
• Body Cult
– Physical toughness, procreation were
encouraged
• Totalitarianism
– Nazism emphasized that the needs of
the individual were subordinate to the
needs of the state
– State would control all aspects of
society for the good of the State
"every activity and every need of
every individual will be regulated
by the collectivity represented by
the party" and that "there are no
longer any free realms in which
the individual belongs to
himself".[Hitler
Germany in the Great Depression
• Germany was hardest hit by GD
• US gave Germany just 90 days to pay off
loans
• Foreign loans stopped or recalled
• Weimar government credit stopped
• Unemployment = 6 million (25% of
workforce)
• Middle class (still reeling from ’23) lost
faith in government and economy
• Lunatic fringe groups emerged
– Communist and fascist brawls
commonplace
• Middle class looked for an alternative to
Bolshevism
• Old scapegoats reemerge
– Versailles, Weimar, Jews, communists
• Democracy itself (ideology that wholly
satisfied none and crushed none) seemed
foreign and un-German
The Great Depression and the Rise of the Nazis
Germany and the Great Depression
• 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
• Utilization of militaristic culture brought
nostalgia of German greatness
• Nazi Seizure of Power
– Infiltrated cities and towns
– Recruited down and out vets
– Indoctrinated them to become thugs
• 1930= Won 107 seats in Reichstag
• 6.5 million voted for them
• 7/1932= had 230 seats (far from a
majority)
Nazi Racism
•
•
•
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
– Got President Paul von Hindenburg to name Hitler
chancellor of a coalition cabinet
Hitler legally became chancellor of German Republic
1/30/1933
– called for new elections
– Halted as a mysterious fire burned down the Reichstag
building
– Nazis blamed the Communists
– Communist party leaders arrested & imprisoned
Enabling Act (1933)
– Gave Hitler dictatorial powers for 4 years
– Could create and enact laws without Reichstag
– Freedom of speech, press, assembly ended
– Brownshirts frightened population at the polls
– 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 Germany 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 (General Will)
• 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 (Nuremberg Laws
of 1935)
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 (Ernst Rohm, SA leader)
– Night of the Long Knives (June
30-July 2, 1934)
• Gestapo
– (Geheime Staatspolizei) was a
secret political police who with
the People’s Courts suppressed
decent and imprisoned
thousands in concentration
camps (Dachau)
• Church leaders under state control
• Hitler Youth
– Nazi Youth Movement schools
indoctrinated new generation
Sophia
Scholl
-member of
White Rose
-Beheaded
by Gestapo
for
distributing
anti-war
leaflets
Play from 1:31-36,
1:46-1:49
Nazi Economic Policy
• Four Year Plan (1936)
– Nazi state directed economic plan
– sought complete independence from foreign trade
• Rearmament was driving stimulus of economy
• National Labor Front
– Replaced labor unions
• “leadership principle”
– set up employers as mini- Fuhrers
• Strength Through Joy
– subsidized low incomes with paid vacations, entertainment
• Public works projects
– eliminated unemployment
– Autobahn
• Vast network of roads
• Would provide quick routes for military
• Neo Continental System
– Planned to eliminate trade barriers by relegating
neighboring countries via conquer or satellites
• Germany was transformed into a war machine with Hitler
viewed as a savior
• “Today Germany, tomorrow the whole world.”
Economic Recovery and Rearmament
Nazi Propaganda
• Totalitarian regimes sought to shape people’s
minds
• Had existed but now became total
• Formerly ideas were suppressed via
censorship of books, people
• Totalitarianism actually manufactured
thought
• Manipulated opinion and rewrote history
• Books, newspapers encouraged whole
ideologies
• Loudspeakers blared in streets
• Inexpensive radios available
• Billboard size posters of the Fuhrer appeared
everywhere
• Triumph of the Will
– Film by "Leni" Riefenstahl of the 1934
Nazi Party Congress
– Made Hitler seem ‘god-like’
• Constant repetition fostered the belief in the
most fantastic rubbish
• People actually began to lose ability to use
reason
Nazi Propaganda
Kristallnacht
• Nuremberg laws of 1935 deprived
Jews 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
Kristallnacht