Download Did the Nazis bring about social and cultural revolutions in Germany?

Aspects of Nazi Germany 1933-39
Nazi Control
Administration
Theorized Nazi Germany
- Gleichschaltung turned Germany into a single party state
- 1933, Hitler is declared ‘the state’ through the Law to Ensure the Unity of Party
and State
- Fuhrer power = Power in the Reich
Actual Nazi Germany
- Old Ministerial Hierarchies vs. Party bodies for government influence ex.
Foreign Affairs Office vs. Nazi Bureau for Foreign Affairs
Note: Historians note that Hitler preferred departmental in-fighting as a means of
maintaining his personal power
Propaganda and Terror
The Nazi party maintained power through the ‘Gestapo’ (Secret State Police)
Ministry of Propaganda through Joseph Goebbles helped control propaganda and
maintain Nazi power.
- Heinrich Himmler as the commander of the SS
SA vs SS
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SA
SS
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Mass organization reliant
upon numbers
After 1934 were mostly flag
waivers at party rallies
-
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Elite force under Hitler’s
direct control
Controlled the concentration
camps
1932 domination of the
party’s intelligence (secret
police – the Gestapo)
SS was in charge of the
maintenance of power
SS units in the regular
German armed forces
- ‘Night of Long Knives’ ensured the SS’s influence over military affairs.
How radical were the economic changes that the Nazis brought about in
Germany?
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Nazi regime depended upon the solution of economic problems
Had to satisfy voters
However, methods sometimes contradicted each other.
Employment
 Poured money into public works
 Unemployed were recruited into Reich Labor Service
 6 million unemployed  2.5 million unemployed within 18 months of
Nazi’s coming to power
 Nazis could claim almost complete success by 1939: less than 200,000
unemployed
Workers
 Met with less consistency, less obvious success
 Complex program of legislation introduced to preserve German peasantry
 12 billion Reichsmarks = all peasant debts
 Peasant debt was suspended between March – October 1933
 Allowed for the survival of small, traditional farmers, yet this stopped rise
of larger farm units and new farming methods.
Big Business/Autarky
 Law for the Protection of the Retail Trade was supposed to help small
traders, yet big business prevailed.
 Supports larger regimes, by 1937, 70% was in the hands of monopolists
 Long term priorities are rearmament and self-sufficiency
 1st phase of policy limited drain of foreign exchange by paying debts in
Reichmarks
 4 year plan to achieve self-sufficiency in 1936, which was to achieve selfsufficiency in industrial and agricultural.
 However Germany was well short of self-sufficiency in 1939
Outcome/Conclusion
 Nazi Germany’s economy was chaotic:
 Foreign reserves low, still in debt
 By mixture of Schacht’s clever financing and ‘windfalls’ (confiscated Jewish
property) and seizure of Austrian assets, economy produced impressive results
1932
1935
1938
Unemployed
(millions)
Coal
(million
tons)
Iron ore
(million
tons)
Pig iron
(million
tons)
Steel
(million
tons)
6.042 (January)
5.392 (July)
2.974 (January)
1.754 (July)
1.052 (January)
0.218 (July)
118.6
2.6
6.1
8.2
Arms
budget
(billion
RM)
1.9
143.0
6.0
12.8
16.2
6.0
186.4
12.4
18.1
21.9
17.2
Did the Nazis bring about social and cultural revolutions in Germany?
Living standards of the German worker
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German workers lost important rights
Awarded prosperity as a consolation prize for loss of political freedom; greatest gain
= employment
Wages – levels were unclear
Role of Women in Nazi society
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Propaganda in the phrase: “Children, Church, Kitchen.” (Kinder, Kirche, Küche)
• Women were seen to only bear and raise a pure race
Ideological attempt based on Nazi regard: eliminate women from flourishing in
economic and political life, banned by law from legal, medical professions, civil
services, and higher in the offices of the Nazi party
• Policy implied that if women were removed from jobs, it made it easier for
men to have full employment
1936: only 37 of Germany’s 7,000 university teachers were women
Birthrate rose: 1934: 1,200,000 to 1,410,000 in 1939
Rejection of the Weimar culture
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Collapse of “old” Germany
Cultural values of “old” society were re-interpreted and challenged
• Inventiveness of Weimar culture:
 Dramatic work of Bertholt Brecht
 Music of Kurt Weill
 Architecture of the Bauhaus movement
Goebels: “with the judgment that art remains free within its own laws of
development but it is bound to the moral, social, and national principles of the state”
Nazis devised complex machinery to implement the “co-ordination”
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Reich chamber of Culture (Reichkulturkammer) meant central body outside which
no “maker of culture” could legally practice their craft
Nazi Art
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3 Major distinguishing features of the Third Reich:
1. Rejection of internationalism (“The response to cultural stimuli from abroad that
had characterized the art of the Weimar period”)
2. Instead of internationalism, a glorification of Nazi values was stressed upon
3. Dominated by a conservatism, mostly a philistinism, that that reflected
Germany’s new leaders
Craig Gordon: “most of the products of this cultural ‘revolution were ‘of a quality so
inferior as to be embarrassing.”
Most of Nazi art was a disguise for propaganda
Musical taste was overrun by the classical past’s Ludwig van Beethoven, Amadeus
Mozart, and Richard Wagner
Nazi Propaganda and the Cinema
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Film industry was made under Goebbles
• Used film to influence the masses (propaganda)
• Barely used and if used, used intelligently
Used films as an expose with political points subtly conveyed with an artistic merit.
Nazism and Education
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Theme of mediocrity (google dictionary definition: If you refer to the mediocrity of
something, you mean that it is of average quality but you think it should be better)
Reich Education Ministry (May 1934) did not change the structure of the educational
system; revised syllabuses
• More focus was put on history, biology, and German as the main classes
while physical fitness and development raised the physical education
department to a more “prestigious” level
Universities
• Dismissal of “unreliable” teachers
• Banning of “Jewish” thesis as Einstein’s Theory of Relativity
• 45% of all universities changed hands
Boys and Girls between the ages of 10-14
• Boys
 Forced to serve in the Jungvolk organization
 Then to be part of the Hitlerjunged (“Hitler Youth”) until the age of
18
• Girls
 Forced to serve in Jungmädel organization
 Then to be part of the Bund Deutsche Mädchen (“German Girls League”)
until the age of 18
Anti-Semitism
Motives
 Ideologically part of Nazism
 A tool for achievement of other aims? (AJP Taylor – ‘a showy substitute for
social change’)
 Hatred – Hitler believed them to be the source of ‘all evil, misfortune and
tragedy’ (Lucy Dawidowicz) – Loss of WW1, Wall St. Crash, Great Depression
etc
 Long tradition of German anti-semitism
 Improved status of Jews under Weimar Republic
Measures to create a ‘Jew-Free State’
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April 1933. Jews banned excluded from positions of social and political influence
– civil service, universities, journalism
Outbreaks of violence and boycotts against Jewish shops and businesses
encouraged
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.einsatzgruppenarchives
.com/
On 1 April 1933 the first boycott of Jewish shops, lawyers and doctors took place all over
Germany. Members of the SA and SS stood outside Jewish stores and reminded each
would-be shopper of the boycott slogan: "Germans protect yourselves. Do not buy from
Jews."
1935. The Nuremburg Laws (Sept) and the National Law of Citizenship (November).
Outlawed marital and sexual contact between Jews and Germans. Jews stripped of
German nationality.
http://images.google.com/
"I am the greatest pig in town - I have affairs with Jews only." This scene, organized for
the press in Hamburg in 1935, appeared in all German newspapers. The man's sign says:
"I only take German girls to my room."
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August 1936. Whole Jewish community would be held responsible for the act of
a Jewish individual.
1938, November. Kristalnacht (Night of the broken glass). A German diplomat
was murdered in Paris by a Jew and ins revenge 7,000 Jewish businesses in
German were attacked and 100 Jews were murderded by the SS. Many Jews were
sent to concentration camps as a result and the Jewish community was fined fro
the damaged caused.
1937. Jews banned from stock broking and banking.
1938 November. The Decree Eliminating Jews from German Economic Life
made it illegal for Jews to work un sales, services, crafts and management.
1939 January. Reich Centre for Jewish Emigration established to arrange for
Jews to leave Germany.
Results
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By 1939 500,000 German Jews were stranded without political or economic rights
January 1939. Hitler’s first public referral to ‘the annihilation of the Jewish race
in Europe.’
1942. Wannsee Conference. ‘The Final Solution to the Jewish Problem’ was
formulated.
To what extent was Nazi authority resisted within Germany?
Defiance from Irritation and Anger
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German Democratic Republic emphasized role of German Communists in
resisting Nazism
Significant dissatisfaction and discontent with Nazi rule
“The extent of disillusionment and discontent in almost all sections of the population,
rooted in the socio-economic experience of daily life, is remarkable.” – The Nazi
Dictatorship (1993) by Ian Kershaw
“Refusal to give the ‘Heil Hitler’ Greeting; insistence upon hanging out the church flag
instead of the swastika banner; public criticism of anti-church measures by Catholic
priests.” Bavaria at the Time of the Nazis (1997-83) by Martin Broszat
Anti-social and Anti-establishment Movements
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‘Edelweiss Pirates’
o German youth in contrast to Hitler youth
o Developed socio-political activities
o Sometimes received death penalty
‘Swing Movement’
o Cultural emphasis
o American and British jazz music and dance
o Unacceptable to regime
Nazi ideal of totalitarian authority not fully achieved
Above opposition have little impact
Unable to reduce capacity of Nazi policies of aggressive war and genocide
Political Opposition
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Resistance to obstruct Nazi intentions
Nazis dealt ruthlessly with opposition
SPD and KPD declared illegal
o 150.000 of supporters were imprisoned
o 40,000 exiled
o 12,000 convicted of high treason
Religious Opposition
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Catholic Church
o 1937: Encyclical Mit Brenneder Sorge protested euthanasia
o Encyclical: A papal letter, circulated to bishops of the Church, or to those
in one particular country.
o 1933: Euthanasia broken important provisions of Concordat
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o Moral objections did not deflect Nazis from purposes
Protestant opposition
o Less focused and more fragmented
o Specifically pastors Martin Niemoller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“The majority of educated Germans were very distrustful of the Hitler propaganda. Very
many felt at the time of Hitler’s victory that his political system was foreign to them.” –
The Sword and the Sceptre (1972) by Gerhard Ritter
Military Opposition
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Gave valuable support to Nazis in early stages of power
Signs of alienation due to:
o Nazi policies became more radical
o Military defeat increasingly likely
July 1944: Attempted assassination of Hitler by army officers at Rastenburg
Nazi regime retained power through ruthless elimination of domestic opponents
(military)
Conclusion
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Different oppositions to Hitler portrayed unification, strength and bravery.
However, did not pose a significant threat.