Download The Rise of the Nazis

THE RISE OF THE NAZIS
Adolf Hitler:
 Hitler was born in Brannau, Austria, in 1889
 He had ambitions to study art in Vienna but was rejected by the Fine Arts Academy
 He was deemed medically unfit to serve in the Austrian army at the outbreak of WWI and moved to Munich in
Germany, from where he joined the German Army and served on the Western Front
 Hitler gained the rank of Corporal and was wounded twice and decorated for bravery
 He was temporarily blinded in a gas attack and was in hospital when the war ended – like millions of other
German soldiers he did not understand how Germany could have lost the war when her armies were everywhere still
on foreign soil
 Hitler blamed the “November Criminals” for Germany's defeat – these were the politicians who had signed the
armistice on the 11th of November 1918
 This was not the case – the Kaiser, who had dragged Germany into the war, and the top generals, like
Hindenburg, who had advised that Germany seek terms at the end of it, were the guilty parties – the problem had
simply been dumped in the laps of the politicians at the very last moment after the Kaiser abdicated
 Nonetheless, they were a convenient excuse for defeat in the war – Hitler and millions like him blamed a mixture
of liberals, democrats, Jews and socialists for undermining morale at home and “stabbing Germany in the back”
Hitler and the Nazis:
 After the war, Hitler stayed in the army and was assigned to keep an eye on various extreme left and right-wing
parties that were emerging
 He spied on a meeting of the German Workers' Party (DAP) and was so impressed that he joined, becoming
member 55, though the Nazis catalogued him as member 555 to pretend they had more members
 Hitler quickly became their leader and changed the name to the National Socialist German Workers' Party
(NSDAP) or Nazis for short
 Hitler was a powerful public speaker – he made loud and aggressive speeches against the Treaty of Versailles,
against the Jews, against Communism and against the new democracy in Germany which he saw as weak and getting
nothing done (known as the Weimar Republic after the city in which it was established) because there were 33
different parties that argued with each other and could not provide stable government
 Lots of other Germans hated some or all of these things – they began to support the Nazis who promised to get rid
of all these things and make Germany a great nation once again
 Hitler was impressed by Mussolini's fascist state and copied many things from him – he organised his followers
into a private unofficial army too, known as the Brownshirts or the SA (Sturmabteilung or Stormtroopers) many
were demobilised soldiers who had fought in WWI and shared Hitler's anger at the manner of Germany's defeat and
his blaming of Jews, Communists and liberal politicians
 Hitler also copied the goose-step and straight-arm salute and adopted the symbol of the Swastika for the Nazis
 Like Mussolini, on his way to power Hitler would use violence, intimidation and propaganda to get more support
The Beer Hall Putsch:
 In January 1923 Germany defaulted on her £100m Reparation payment – in retaliation France occupied the
industrial area of the Ruhr, looking to get its payment in coal instead
 German workers in the Ruhr went on strike in response and the German government printed extra money to pay
them
 This led to hyper-inflation where eventually £1 was equal to 27bn marks – German money became worthless
and people became desperate
 Hitler thought this was the ideal time to seize power – he stood on the stage of a Beer Hall in Munich and ordered
the Nazis to march on Berlin like Mussolini had done in Rome the previous year
 The police opened fire on the march and 16 Nazis were killed – the blood of one splattered a swastika flag which
would later become a Nazi treasure
 The failed rebellion was known as the Beer Hall Putsch
 Hitler had committed murder, treason and robbery but was only sentenced to 9 months in Landsberg Prison – he
learned the lesson that many powerful people, like judges or generals, sympathised with his views
 He also learned that he would have to get power legally and then tear down the system from within
 While in prison he wrote his book “Mein Kampf” (“My Struggle”) in which he wrote down everything he
believed (hatred of Jews) and everything he wanted to do (invade Russia) – foreign leaders had been warned!
Hitler's Racial Beliefs:
 Hitler believed in Neo- or Social-Darwinism – he took Darwin's ideas of Natural Selection and Survival of the
Fittest in the animal kingdom and applied them to human society

This meant the strongest had the right to exert their will over the weaker, to the point of stronger nations having
the right to invade, conquer and enslave weaker nations – Hitler said this was Nature's Way or the Law of the
Jungle
 He believed there were superior humans, the Herrenvolk (Master Race), also known as Aryans, who were
typically tall, blond, blue-eyed Northern Europeans
 This contrasted with the Untermensch (Sub-humans) weaker and racially inferior people like Poles, Russians,
Slavs, Blacks, Gypsies and, most importantly, Jews
 What was crucial was that Hitler was not the only person who thought like this – millions of others across
Germany and Europe had the same racial beliefs, they just needed a man like Hitler to channel their hatred
The Nazis come to Power:
 Between 1923 and 1929, thanks to American loans, the German economy improved, people became less
desperate and support for the Nazis dropped so that they became a fringe party, almost a joke, winning just 2% of the
vote in the 1928 election
 The Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed changed everything – the American
economy went into free-fall and the Americans stopped lending money to the Germans
 This meant the German economy collapsed for the second time in six years – unemployment jumped to 6m,
20,000 businesses went bankrupt, people's life savings and pensions were wiped out and support for a communist
revolution began to grow
 In desperation, those Germans who feared communism, who had grown tired with a weak democracy and those
who had become desperate due to poverty and were driven to the extremes began to support the Nazis and their share
of the vote began to rise steadily again
 In the German parliament in Berlin, the Reichstag, the Nazis had 12 seats in 1928 but had 230 by 1932
 Rich German industrialists, who feared communism, gave financial support to the Nazis – they used this money
to fight the various elections
 Joseph Goebbels, a master of propaganda, was in charge of producing countless election posters
 The Brownshirts impressed some with their organised marching, they comforted others by standing up to
communists, often engaging in running street-fights with them, and they scared others into voting for the Nazis
 On top of that, politicians who had lost power in the previous election, struck a deal with Hitler to form a new
government and persuaded the old president, Hindenburg, to give his approval
 These politicians underestimated Hitler, they thought he would play by the rules of democracy and that he could
be controlled in power
 All these factors combined to see Hitler made Chancellor of Germany in January 1933
Dictatorship:
 Within a year, Hitler had destroyed German democracy and made himself absolute master of the country
 In February 1933 the Reichstag Fire happened - a Dutch communist called Marius van der Lubbe burned down
the building
 Hitler used this as en excuse to grant himself extreme powers – he arrested 4,000 communists and sent them to
Germany's first concentration camp at Dachau
 He also passed the Enabling Act – this gave him the power to rule by himself for four years – and was passed
through parliament partly because all the communists were imprisoned and partly because the SA intimidated any
other politicians who might have voted against it
 Hitler, of course, had no intention of handing back power after four years
 In May 1933 he banned all Trade Unions, replacing them with Nazi-run Labour Front
 He also abolished all other political parties and any newspapers that disagreed with Nazi policies
 When President Hindenburg died in 1934 Hitler merged the two positions of Chancellor and President into one
new position which he filled – the Fuhrer (Leader)
 Hitler also needed the support of the German Army, the Wehrmacht – it was this army that would build the new,
third German Empire that Hitler boasted would last 1,000 years (the Third Reich)
 The army hated the Brownshirts – professional soldiers saw the Brownshirts as thugs and street-fighters and they
resented their prominence and feared the Brownshirts might replace the regular Germany Army
 To reassure the army, and also because he suspected the leader of the Brownshirts, Ernst Rohm, of plotting
against him, Hitler decided to get rid of the leadership of the Brownshirts so that his position of power would be
absolute
 Hitler's suspicion of Rohm was encouraged by the rumour-spreading of Heinrich Himmler, head of Hitler's new
private bodyguard, the SS
 On 30th June 1934, SS men murdered Rohm and 400 other leading Brownshirts in what became known as the
Night of the Long Knives
 Suitably reassured, the official German army now swore an oath of loyalty directly to Hitler – this is important
because later, some German soldiers would try to explain some of the horrific attrocities the committed by saying
they could not disobey orders by breaking this oath

Hitler was now absolute master of Germany, his power was much greater than Mussolini's ever would be –
Mussolini still shared power in Italy with both the Italian King and the Pope
 After the chaotic, unstable previous four years, blamed on a weak democracy, many Germans were content to
sacrifice some of their liberties for the firm leadership of a single man – they looked back to the last time Germany
had been great and powerful and it was under the rule of another single man, the Kaiser
 They also Nazism as less of a threat than communism