Download By: Sara Hua, Yveline Van Anh and Linda Harmaala HITLER

By: Sara Hua, Yveline Van Anh and Linda Harmaala
HITLER REVIEW NOTES ~
Conditions:
 The Weimar Republic accepted the very unpopular Treaty of Versailles, which was considered a mark of defeat and
humiliation.
 The new Weimar constitution was weak, as it gave all parties proportional representation.
 Germany had no experience in how to govern a democratic parliamentary system.
 War reparations + expense of the war = 50 million pounds due.
 Inability to control violent outbreaks (Sparticist Rising, Kapp Putsch, etc) without foreign help proved government’s
weakness.
 Oct 1929: Wall Street Crash, world economic crisis. 6.5 million people unemployed
 Hitler + Nazis were a very attractive alternative at the time the Republic was at its worst.
 Jan 1933: Hinderberg appointed Hitler as Chancellor in hopes of being able to control him, but Hitler introduced the
Enabling Law that gave him full power.
Ideology:
 He was an extreme Nationalist.
 Anti Capitalist
 Communist
 Democratic
 Nazism = Fascism
 Darwinist. Survival of the fittest (natural selection) should be helped (speeded up) by the government. Eradicate all
‘incurables’ and those inferior to the German Race. (Hence the genocide of the Jews)
 Nazism relied on the Jews. Any failure was blamed on the Jews.
 Opposition to the Treaty of Versailles.
 Totalitarian principle of government.
 Two major goals:
 Bring together all Germans to create a “Greater Germany”.
 Expansion of the German empire, starting with the Soviets. (aka world domination)
Supporters of Hitler:
During his regime, Hitler was supported by many people in Germany because he praised ideals that the German people
believed in.
 Hitler decreased unemployment in Germany from almost 6 million to 1 million.
 He encouraged patriotism and nationalism in Germany, which appealed to many German people.
Opposition to Hitler:
 The opposition by individuals and groups to Adolf Hitler’s regime in Nazi Germany is known as the German Resistance.
The term does not signify a united resistance movement in Germany, but a combination of small and usually isolated
groups that existed at the time.
 The German Resistance represented many classes existing in German society who therefore were rarely able to work
together.
 One group was the underground networks of the banned Social Democrats and Communists. They mostly existed not to
“resist” against the Nazi government, but to keep their parties alive in the hope of coming back to power in the future.
 Another group that opposed the Nazi regime was based on minorities within the Catholic and Protestant churches. They
inspired some acts of overt resistance such as the White Rose group in Munich, a non-violent resistance group in Nazi
Germany. It was composed of students from the University in Munich and their philosophy professor. They became
known for an anonymous leaflet campaign that lasted for eight months, from June 1942 to February 1943, and that
called for active opposition to Hitler’s regime. The six central members of the group were arrested and beheaded in
1943.
 A third general resistance group is the “unorganized resistance”, made up of individual Germans or small groups of
people who acted against the Nazi system. The most distinguished examples of such movements include the significant
number of Germans who helped Jews survive the Holocaust by hiding them, obtaining papers for them or by helping
them in other ways. Over 300 Germans have now been recognized this type of activity. The “unorganized resistance” in
Nazi German also included, especially during the war, informal networks of young Germans who escaped from serving
in the Hitler Youth.
 The last type of resistance to the Nazi regime was that within the German state machinery itself, especially in the Army,
the Foreign Office and the Abwehr (the military intelligence organization). They conspired against Hitler in 1938 and
1939 but were unable to take action. Many of the active resisters in these groups came from the old Prussian
By: Sara Hua, Yveline Van Anh and Linda Harmaala
aristocracy because this was the only social class which had not been penetrated by the Nazi ideology.
Methods used by Hitler:
 Hitler used different methods to gain power in Germany. However, ultimately, he became dictator as a result of the preexisting conditions of the Weimar Republic. The main method that Hitler used to maintain power during his rule is
violence. Such examples can be found in the insertion of the guillotine as a method of execution; over 40,000 people
were executed by guillotine in Nazi Germany. Furthermore, Hitler used violence to force Parliament to approve the
Enabling Act, which secured him the position of power in Germany. He also used violence to defeat the SA and gain the
support of the German Army, the Reischwer.
Political Policy:
 Single Party State (1933)
 Totalitarian
 Dictatorship
 The abolishment of the Trade Union (1933)
 The Enabling Act (1933)
 Merging of the police and the state
 The Decree for the Protection of the People and the State
Economical Policy:
 The New Plan (1934)
 The Four Year Plan (1936)
Social Policy:
1. Education:
a. Students were educated according to Nazi beliefs: racial biology, population policy, culture, geography and
especially physical fitness.
b. Non-Aryan laws led to the expulsion of all Jewish teachers, professors and officials.
c. All university professors were required to be a member of the National Socialist Association of University
Lecturers.
2. Religion:
a. The state was atheist because the Hitler feared that the church had too much power.
b. The twenty-five theses of the German religion, a modeling of the points of the Nazi program
3. Women’s Rights:
a. Women were considered child bearers and needed to take care of the households.
b. They leave their jobs and universities to do so.
c. This led to more job opportunities for the men.
d. Female children were brought up with these values through social groups.
4. Minorities:
a. The Kristallnacht (The Night of Glass)
b. Believed in the superiority of the Aryan race, above all else.
c. Marriages between Aryans and Non-Aryans were forbidden
d. Bias against homosexuals and gypsies
e. Occasionally sterilization of non-Aryans
5. Art:
a. Import of foreign films were restricted and the German ones nationalized.
b. Propaganda was heavily used to promote the Nazi Regime.
c. Censored from Jewish, non-Aryan artists
d. Literature written by non-Aryans or opposed to the Nazi regime were confiscated and later burnt.
6. Propaganda:
a. Used to promote Nazi beliefs
b. Used to portray the government as dutiful, cover for lack of organization.
c. Insulted and pictured Jewish and non-Aryans badly