Hitler and Nazi Germany

1
Hitler and Nazi Germany

• After WWI loss and the Great Depression,
  extremist parties appealed to many Germans.
  Hitler will take advantage of this as he promises
  to build a new Germany focusing on nationalism in
  his propaganda

2
Hitler and his views

• Main Idea
• Hitlers totalitarian state was accepted
• His ideas were based on racism, and German
  nationalism
• Jews and minorities were persecuted

3
Background to who Hitler was

• Born in Austria in 1889
• Unsuccessfully academically and was not accepted
  into art academy
• While in Vienna his political and social ideas
  developed
• Racism was a core theme
• Extreme nationalist
• Knew the advantages propaganda and terror
  political parties used to gain control

4
Military Experience

• Served 4 years on Western front in WWI
• Hitler served in France and Belgium
• Exposed him to enemy fire.
• He drew cartoons and instructional
• drawings for the army newspaper.
• Hitler was twice decorated for bravery.
• After war wanted to remain in Germany to enter
  politics ? military injury from mustard gas he
  said gave him the vision to save Germany
• In 1919 joined right wing extremist group in
  Munich called the German-Workers Party

5
Hitler finds a group

• National Socialist German Workers Party which
  became known as Nazi
• Like many other German nationalists, Hitler
  believed in the Dolchstoßlegende ("dagger-stab
  legend") which claimed that the army, "undefeated
  in the field", had been "stabbed in the back" by
  civilian leaders and Marxists back on the home
  front
• During his inspection of the party, Hitler was
  impressed with founder Anton Drexler's
  anti-Semitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist and
  anti-Marxist ideas, which favored a strong active
  government, a "non-Jewish" version of socialism
  and mutual solidarity of all members of society.
• Membership grew to 55,000 people with almost 20
  have been in the military
• Militia was known as the SA, Storm Troops, or
  Brownshirts because of their uniforms

6
Beer Hall Putsch

• Hitler planned an uprising, the Beer Hall Putsch,
  on Munich in 1923
• The Nazi Party had copied Italy's fascists in
  appearance and also had adopted some
  programmatical points, and in 1923, Hitler wanted
  to emulate Mussolini's "March on Rome
• Uprising was stopped
• He declared that he had set up a new government
  with Ludendorff and demanded, at gunpoint, the
  support of Kahr and the local military
  establishment for the destruction of the Berlin
  government.
• The next day, when Hitler and his followers
  marched from the beer hall to the Bavarian War
  Ministry to overthrow the Bavarian government as
  a start to their "March on Berlin", the police
  dispersed them. Sixteen NSDAP members were killed
  

7
Trial and Imprisonment

• He was soon arrested for high treason
• Alfred Rosenberg became temporary leader of the
  party.
• During Hitler's trial, he was given almost
  unlimited time to speak
• his popularity soared as he voiced nationalistic
  sentiments.
• A Munich personality became a nationally known
  figure.
• In prison, Hitler received favored treatment from
  the guards and had much fan mail from admirers.
• He was pardoned and had served little more than
  one year of his sentence
• During prison time he wrote Mein Kampf (My
  Struggle)
• Publication and Acceptance
• It was published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926,
  sold about 240,000 copies between 1925 and 1934
• By the end of the war, about 10 million copies
  had been sold or distributed (newly-weds and
  soldiers received free copies)

8
Mein Kampf

• Content
• Hitler wrote of extreme German nationalism,
  strong anti-Semetic feelings, and anti-communism
• Connected these beliefs to the Darwinian theory
  of struggle
• Theory emphasized right of superior nations to
  lebensraum (living space) through expansion
• Idea superior individuals gain authoritarian
  leadership over the masses
• Sections of the book
• A book on foreign policy.
• Hitler predicted the stages of Germanys
  political reality on the world stage
• in the first stage, Germany would overthrow the
  shackles of the Treaty of Versailles and form
  alliances with the British Empire and Fascist
  Italy.
• The second stage would feature wars against
  France and her allies in Eastern Europe by the
  combined forces of Germany, Britain and Italy.
• The third and final stage would be a war to
  destroy what Hitler saw as the "Judeo-Bolshevik"
  regime in the Soviet Union that would give
  Germany the necessary Lebensraum

9
The Rise of the Party

• Legal means would allow Hitler to take over, not
  through violent overthrow
• This meant formally adhering to the rules of the
  Weimar Republic until he had legally gained power
  and then transforming liberal democracy into a
  Nazi dictatorship
• Nazi party must be a political party that could
  compete for votes along with other political
  parties
• The party learned quickly, and soon a more subtle
  propaganda emerged, combining anti-Semitism with
  an attack on the failures of the "Weimar system"
  and the parties supporting it.

10
Hitler is Free and the party takes off

• Once out of prison he expanded Nazi party and by
  1929 had gained national party organization
• 3 years later there was more than 800000
  members
• Became largest party in Reichstag

11
Reasons for Success

• Economic difficulties
• Unemployment has risen
• 4.4 million to 5.5 million in 1 year
• Hitler promised a new Germany
• Appealed to nationalism and militarism
• They saw him as a savior
• Under these circumstances, Hitler appealed to
• German farmers, war veterans and the middle
  class, who had been hard-hit by both the
  inflation of the 1920s and the unemployment of
  the Depression.
• Hitler received little response from the urban
  working classes and traditionally Catholic
  regions.

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How the Nazis Take Control

• German government ruled by decree (authoritarian
  order) with support of President Hindenberg
• Parliament had little power
• More and more right-wing German elites looked to
  Hitler for leadership
• Under pressure, Hindenberg allowed Hitler to
  become chancellor and form a new government

13
The Beginning of Power

• Within 2 months, Hitler was able to lay a
  foundation for the Nazi party to take control
  over Germany
• legal seizure of power
• Enabling Act passed by Reichstag

14
Enabling Act

• Law gave government the power to ignore the
  constitution for four years so it could focus on
  helping the country
• Allowed Hitlers actions to be legal
• No longer needed President Hindenburg or
  Reichstag
• Appointed dictator of parliamentary body

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Now that they have the power

• Nazis quickly brought all institutions under
  their control
• Purged all Jews from civil service or democratic
  elements
• Established concentration camps for any
  opposition
• Trade unions dissolved
• All political parties except Nazi party were
  eliminated
• Within 7 months totalitarian state was
  established
• When Hindenburg died so did the office of
  presidency
• Hitler became sole ruler, and people had to take
  oaths of loyalty to the Fuhrer, leader

16
The Nazi State1933 - 1939

• Hitler used anti-Semitism, economic policy, and
  propaganda to build a Nazi state

17
Goals

• Wanted the development of the Aryan race to
  dominate Europe and possibly the world for future
  generations
• Aryan noble
• identify people speaking Indo-European languages
• Nazis misunderstood and connected the Aryans with
  ancient Greeks and Romans and then 20th century
  Germans and Scandinavians
• blond haired people
• Nazism portrayed their interpretation of an
  "Aryan race" as the only race capable of, or with
  an interest in, creating and maintaining culture
  and civilizations
• while other races are merely capable of
  destruction of culture.

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Nazi Beliefs

• Thought Nazis were true descendants and leaders
  of the Aryans
• Nazis would create another empire like the Roman
  emperor
• There were two previous Reichs (empires) but
  Hitlers Third Reich would be supreme
• Holy Roman Empire and German Empire
• Third will be empire of Nazi Germany

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How will they take control?

• We must develop organizations in which an
  individuals entire life can take place. every
  activity and every need of every individual will
  be regulated by the collectivity represented by
  the partythere is no free willthe time of
  personal happiness is over
• - Hitler

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How will they do this?

• Needed the active involvement of German people
• Employed economic policies
• Mass spectacles
• Organizations
• Freely used terror

21
The State and Terror

• Germany was constant personal and institutional
  conflict
• Struggle was basic feature of relationships
  within the party, within the state, and between
  the party and state
• Hitler was ultimate decision maker and absolute
  ruler

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Schutztaffeln SS

• Guard Squadrons
• Force maintaining order
• Started as Hitlers bodyguard
• Women strongly encouraged them to stay at home to
  bear children and keep house.
• Hitler argued that for the German woman her
  world is her husband, her family, her children,
  and her home.
• Reinforced by bestowing the Cross of Honor of the
  German Mother on women bearing four or more
  babies.
• Unemployment rate was cut substantially, mostly
  through arms production and sending women home so
  that men could take their jobs.
• The main purpose of the Germanic-SS was
  enforcement of Nazi racial doctrine and
  anti-Semitic policies

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Heinrich Himmler

• Controlled secret AND regular police forces
• Held final command responsibility for
  annihilating subhumans who the Nazis deemed
  unworthy to live
• Opened the first concentration camps
• One of the main architects of the Holocaust,
  using elements of mysticism and a fanatical
  belief in the racist Nazi ideology to justify the
  mass murder and genocide of millions of victims.
• Plans for the Poles and for many other nations in
  Eastern Europe (such as the Russians)
• All intellectuals were to be killed and other
  Poles were to be only literate enough to read
  traffic signs.

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SS Principles

• Terror
• Instruments of repression and murder
• Secret police, criminal police, concentration
  camps, execution squads, and death camps
• It had the authority to investigate treason,
  espionage and sabotage cases, and cases of
  criminal attacks

• Ideology
• Goal further master race

25
Economies

• Hitler used public work projects and grants to
  employ people
• Women were NOT to work
• Only men were breadwinners
• A massive rearmament program was solution to
  unemployment problem
• In March 1935, Hitler violated the Treaty of
  Versailles by reintroducing conscription,
  building a massive military machine, including a
  new Navy and an Air Force.
• The enlistment of vast numbers of men and women
  in the new military seemed to solve unemployment
  problems but seriously distorted the economy.

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Economy

• Regime claimed full credit for solving Germanys
  economic problems
• Sponsored architecture
• Held the Olympics in 1936
• Railroad infrastructure, dams, and autobahns
• Cultural changes
• Awarded people for quitting smoking with jewelry
• Aimed to influence peoples diets (no meat which
  led to cancer)
• Edited car changes to the VW Beetle and Porsche
• Hitler made it his agenda to motorize the nation
  and that every German should own either a car or
  a tractor in the future
• People did view Hitler and Nazis as ending the
  Depression and reviving Germany

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Spectacles

• Nazi mass demonstrations and spectacles to make
  Germans Hitlers tools
• Meetings evoked mass enthusiasm and excitement
• Nuremberg parties held every September
• Controlled institutions
• Churches, schools, universities
• Nazi professional organizations and youth
  organizations that taught Nazi ideals

28
Women and Nazism

• Women were child bearers of the future utopian
  race
• Only men could be warriors and political leaders
  while women had to be wives and mothers
• Each best served the community in their own way

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Get ahold of pots and pans and brooms and youll
sooner find a groom!

• Nazi ideas determined female employment, if any
• Too strong of jobs would hurt womens chances of
  having healthy babies
• Education, medicine, and law were unsuitable for
  women
• Leave this to smart men since women are inferior
• Instead focus on social work and nursing

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Anti-Semitic Policies

• Nuremberg Laws
• Est in 1935 at rally ? aimed at Jews
• Determined who was Jewish (anyone in family)
• Excluded Jews from gaining citizenship, took away
  civil rights, and forbade inter-religion
  marriages
• Jews could not teach or interact in any way with
  art
• Jews had to wear star of David and an ID that
  stated they were Jewish

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Anti-Semitic Policies

• Kristallnacht Night of Shattered Glass
• 11/9/1938
• Destructive rampage
• Nazis burned synagogues and destroyed thousands
  of businesses
• At least 100 were killed and 30000 taken to
  concentration camps

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Effects

• Led drastic effects
• Jews barred from all public transportation and
  public buildings
• Could not own, manage, or work in a retail store
• Forced to clean up Kristallnacht night mess
• Encouraged to emigrate from Germany