NAZISM AND THE RISE OF HITLER

 Class- IX    HISTORY: INDIA AND THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD-I

 

03.       NAZISM AND THE RISE OF HITLER

 

1945- Helmuth (parents discussing something in serious tones- allies will do to us what we did to crippled and Jews) and his father shot himself. He did not eat at home for 9 years fearing that his mother will poison him. His father was Nazi and supporter of Hitler.

Hitler

·       Determined to make Germany a mighty power

·       Ambition to conquer Europe

·       Killed Jews

·       Nazism- structure of ideas and politics

·       In May 1945, Germany surrendered to the allies (UK, and France- later joined by USSR and USA). Anticipating what was coming.

·       Hitler, his propaganda minister Goebbles and his entire family committed suicide collectively in his Berlin bunker in April.

·       At the end of the war , International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg was set up  to prosecute Nazi war criminals for crimes against Peace, for war crimes and Crimes against humanity (Moral and ethical questions)

·       Genecidal war- under the shadow of 2^nd world war- mass murder- 6 million Jews,2,00,000Gypsies, 1 million polish civilians, 70,000 Germans who were considered mentally and physically disabled- by gassing them in killing centers like Auschwitz

Birth of Weimar Republic

·       First world war- Germany and Austria versus England, France and Russia

·       Europe was drained of its resources

·       Germany made initial gain over France and Russia

·       Later USA entered in 1917

·       Germany and central powers defeated in 1918

·       Defeat of Germany and abdication of emperor- gave opportunity to recast German polity

·       National assembly met at Weimar - established democratic constitution with federal structure

·       Deputies elected to German parliament of Reichstag-  based on equal vote by all adults including women

·       Could not remain long

·       Peace treaty at Versailles was  harsh and humiliating

Germany

·       Lost overseas colonies

·       1/10th population

·       13% territories

·       75% iron

·       26% coal to France, Poland, Denmark and Lithuania

·       Demilitarized to weaken power

·       Germany was are responsible for war and damage to allied powers

·       Pay compensation of 6 billion pounds

·       Allies occupied Rhineland by 1920s

·       Many Germans held Weimar republic responsible for defeat and disgrace

Impact of War

·       Europe turned from creditor to debitor

·       Weimar Republic was financially crippled and forced to pay compensation

·       Socialist Catholics and democrats they are known as the November Criminals-  supported Weimar Republic -  because easy target of attack in the conservative nationalist circles

·       Soldiers were above civilians

·       Men wear aggressive strong and masculine

Political Radicalism and Economic Crisis

·       Weimar Republic coincided with the birth of spartacist league on the pattern of Bolshevik Revolution in Russia

·       Soviet of workers and sailors were established

·       Demand for soviet style governance

·       Weimar republic crushed uprising with the help of a war veteran organisation called Free Corps

·       Anguished spartacist founded by the communist party of Germany

·       Political radicalization as heightened by economic crisis in 1923

·       Germany fought war in loans and paid reparations in gold which depleted the gold reserves

·       Germany refused to pay and French occupied Ruhr area

·       Germany started printing paper notes, mark declined and price of goods soared-hyperinflation (April- 1 US$= 24,000 marks (currency of Germany) and in December- 2 trillion)

Dawes plan

·       Released financial burden on Germans

·       America intervened

Years of depression

·       1924-28:  years of stability

·       1929- wall street exchange collapsed  fall in prices

·       In one day around 13 million shares were sold - start of economic depression

·       1929-32-  national income of USA decreased to halved

·       Factory shutdown peasants were hit, export fell and  speculators took money off the market

·       1932- industrial production of Germany reduced to 40% of

·       1929-  lost jobs,  paid reduced wages,  unemployment at 6 million

·       Criminal activities increased

·       Savings of old age lost as current lost its value

·       Fear of proletarianisation (improveised to  level of working class),  an anxiety reduced to ranks of the working class or worse still and unemployed

·       Peasantry  could not fill stomach

 

Defects under Weimar Republic

·       Proportional representation- made achieving a majority by any one party a near impossible task, leading to a rule by coalitions

·       Article 48-  president the powers to impose emergency, suspended civil rights and rule by decree

·       Within its short life , the Weimar Republic saw 20 different cabinets lasting on an average 239 days and a liberal use of article 48

Hitler's rise to power

·       Born in 1889 in Austria

·       Youth in poverty

·       Powerful speaker

·       Build strong  nation

·       Undo  justice of a treaty of Versailles

·       Restore the dignity of  German people

·       Weed out  foreign influence and resist foreign conspiracies

·       Significance of rituals and mobilization

·       Massive rallies and demonstration

·       Red banners with Swastik, Nazi salute

·       Enrolled for army, become a corporal and earned medal for bravery

Development took place under Hitler

·       1919-  Hitler joined Workers Party

·       Renamed it as National Socialist German Worker’s Party (Nazi Party) Converted Germany to  Totalitarian State

·       1923-  Planned to Seize Bavaria,  March to Berlin and Capture Power- Failed , Arrested And Tried For Treason

·       Could not Mobilize Support Till 1930

·       During Great Depression- Nazism became a Mass Movement

·       After 1929-  Banks Collapsed, Workers Lost Job,  Middle Class Threatened

·       1928- Got 2.6% Vote in Reichstag-  German Parliament

·       By 1932-   Became Largest Party With 37% Votes

Destruction of power

·       1933- President Hindenburg offered chancellorship, the highest position in the cabinet of ministers, to Hitler.

·       Hitler tried to dismantle democratic rule

·       Fire broke in German parliament in February -Fire decree of 28 February 1933 indefinitely suspended Civic rights like freedom of speech, press and assembly

·       Concentration camp- A camp where people are isolated and detained without due process of law.  Typically, it was surrounded by electrified barbed wire fences- for communists

·       On 3 March 1933- Enabling Act was passed, it established dictatorship in Germany.  It gave Hitler All Powers to sideline Parliament and rule by decree. All political parties and trade unions were banned except Nazis

·       Regular Police in green uniform

·       SA or the Storm Troopers included the Gestapro (secret state police)

·       SS (protection squads), criminal police and Security services (SD)

Reconstruction

·       Hitler gave economic recovery to economist Hialmar Schacht, who aimed at full production and full employment through a state funded work -creation program- produced  super Highway and cars by Volkswagan

·       Pulled out of the League of Nations in 1933

·       Reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936

·       Integrated Austria and Germany in 1938 under the slogan, one people, one empire, and one leader

·       Took over Czechoslovakia

·       Hitler choose war as option to reach out economic crisis- resources to be accumulated by expansion of territory

·       In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland.  This started a war with France and England

·       In September 1940, Tripartite pact was signed between Germany, Italy and Japan, strengthening Hitler's claim to international power

·       Puppet regimes, supportive of Nazi Germany, where installed in a large part of Europe

·       By the end of 1940, Hitler was at the Pinnacle of his power

·       Attacked Soviet Union in 1941- Soviet army defeated Germany at Stalingrad. Soviet Red Army reached till heart of Berlin

·       USA registered involvement in war due to huge losses incurred in world war I.  But the expanding to East by occupying French Indo China and US Naval bases in Pacific

·       Extended support to Hitler and born The Pearl Harbour USA entering in World War II (ended in 1945 with the defeat of Hitler and nuclear bomb on Hirosima)

Nazi Views

·       No equality only racial hierarchy

·       Nordic German Aryans at top and Jews at lowest rank (Idea borrowed from Charles Darwin - evolution and natural selection, Herbert Spencer- survival of fittest)

·       Strongest race would survive and weakest would perish

·       Aryans- finest race, pure, strong and would dominate the world

·       Lebensraum or living space- new territories to be acquired for settlement- enhance area and enable new settlers

·       Poland became the laboratory for experimentation

Racial State established

·       Physically eliminated all those who are not desirable

·       Even impure Germans had no right to exist

·       Euthanasia program- German physically or mentally unfit were condemned to death

·       Inferior clans- Jews (killer of Christ and usurers), Gypsies, Blacks, Russian and Poles

·       Jews- barred from owning land, only trade and moneylending, lived in ghettos

·       From 1933 to 1938 the Nazis terrorized, pauperized and segregated the Jews, compelling them to leave the country

·       Nuremberg laws of citizenship of September 1935

·       Only person of German or related blood would henceforth be German citizens enjoying the protection of the German Empire

·       Marriages between Jews and Germans were forbidden

·       Extramarital relations between Jews and Germans became a crime

·       Jews were forbidden to fly the national flag

Other legal measures included:

·       Boycott of Jewish businesses

·       Expulsion from government services

·       Forced selling and confiscation of their properties

·       1938- Remembered as night of broken glass

·       From 1939 to 1945 they aimed at concentrating them in certain areas and eventually killing them in gas chambers in Poland

·       Ghettoisation Concentrating them to smaller or some specific pockets (hunger, starvation and deprivation) all Jews to wear yellow Star of David

·       After 1941- Annihailation- Jews brought to death factories by goods trains

·       In Poland and elsewhere in the East, most notably Belzek, Auschwitz, Sobibor, Treblinka, Chelmno and Majdanek, they were charred in gas chambers. Mass killing took place within minutes with scientific precision

·       NW Poland- annexed by Germany (Poles forced to leave to other parts as General Government or destination for undesirables)

·       Polish children similar to Aryans were examined by race experts- if passed would leave with German families else would go to orphanage

Youth in Nazi Germany

·       Schools cleansed and purified under Nazis

·       Jew teachers were dismissed

·       German and Jews children were separated

·       Good German got Nazi schooling- textbooks were written and racial science was common, stereotypes against Jews were given, sports aimed to nurture violence and aggression

·       Educate in spirit of national socialism

·       10 years old- enter Jungvolk (Nazi youth group)

·       14 years old- boys joined Hitler youth (worship war, glorify aggression and violence, condemned democracy, and hate Jews, communists, Gypsies)

·       18 years- join labour services, serve armed forces and enter Nazi organisation

·       1922-  Youth league was formed (after 4 yours called Hitler youth)

·       While boys were thought to be aggressive, masculine and steel hearted, girls were told that they had to become a good mothers and rear pure blooded Aryan children. Girls had to maintain the purity of the race distance from Jews looked after children and teach Nazi sentiments.

·       To encourage women to produce many children Honor Crosses were awarded the bronze cross was given for 4 children silver for 6 and gold for 8 or more

Propaganda

·       Nazis never used the words ‘kill’ or ‘murder’ in their official communications

·       Mass killings via torrent special treatment, final solution (for the Jews), euthanasia (for the disabled), selection and disinfections

·       Evacuation meant deporting people to gas chambers

·       Gas chambers were known as  disinfection areas and looked like bathrooms equipped with fake showerheads

·       Socialist and liberals were represented as weak and degenerate

·       Orthodox Jews were stereotyped and marked- shown as flowing beard wearing Kaftan (in reality hard to differentiate from German Jews)

 

·       Charlotte Beradt book Third Reich of Dreams- describe how Jews themselves began believing in the Nazi stereotypes about them. They dreamt of their hooked noses, black hair and eyes,  Jewish looks and body movements, Jews died many deaths even before they reached the gas chamber.

 

·       Nazi killing operations called as Holocaust- when the war seemed lost, the Nazi leadership distributed petrol to its functionaries to destroy incrementing evidence available in offices

 

“These are a tribute to those who resisted it,  an embarrassing reminder to those who collaborated and a warning to those who watched in silence”.

 

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