Hitler and Nazi Germany

Adolf Hitler

• Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria, the son of a minor customs official and a peasant girl.

Hitler’s Father

Hitler’sMother

• A poor student, he never completed high school.

• He applied for

admission to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna twice but was rejected for lack of talent.

“Then I came to Vienna….”

• Staying in Vienna until 1913, he lived first on an orphan's pension, later on small earnings from pictures he drew.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ac/AHWatercolor1.jpg

“Is this a Jew? was my first thought. They surely didn't look like that in Linz. I observed the man stealthily and cautiously. But the longer I stared at this alien face, examining it feature for feature, the more my first question was transformed into a new conception: Is this a German?”

- Mein Kampf

• While in Vienna he read voraciously, developing anti-Jewish and antidemocratic convictions, an admiration for the outstanding individual, and a contempt for the masses.

The major influences on Hitler's ideology included

• The musical dramas of Richard Wagner.

• The demagogic, anti-Semitic, and mass political party methods of the Vienna, Austria mayor, Karl Lueger;

• the virulently ultra nationalistic diatribes of Pan-German leader Georg von Schönerer.

• and the racist and nationalist literature of Lanz von Liebenfels.

• In World War I, Hitler, volunteered for service in the Bavarian army and served as a dispatch runner.

• He proved a dedicated, courageous soldier, but was never promoted beyond private first class because his superiors thought him lacking in leadership qualities.

• After Germany's defeat in 1918 he returned to Munich, remaining in the army until 1920.

The German Workers’ Party

• In September 1919 he joined the nationalist German Workers' party, and in April 1920 he went to work full time for the party, now renamed the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) party.

The Original Nazi Party

Nazi Fuhrer• In 1921 he

was elected party chairman (Führer) with dictatorial powers.

• Hitler spread his gospel of racial hatred and contempt for democracy.

• He organized meetings, and terrorized political foes with his personal bodyguard force, the Sturmabteilung (SA, or Storm Troopers).

• He soon became a key figure in Bavarian politics, aided by high officials and businessmen.

The Beer Hall Putsch

• In November 1923, a time of political and economic chaos, he led an uprising (Putsch) in Munich against the postwar Weimar Republic, proclaiming himself chancellor of a new authoritarian regime.

“One last thing I can tell you. Either the German revolution begins tonight and the morrow will find us in Germany a true nationalist government, or it will find us dead by dawn!"

• Without military support, the Putsch collapsed and Hitler was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison.

• He was released after nine months

• The failure of the uprising taught Hitler that the Nazi party must use legal means to assume power.

Mein Kampf

• He spent the nine months in prison dictating his autobiography Mein Kampf (My Struggle).

• The book set forth Hitler's twisted ideology of racism, Aryan supremacy, and anti-Semitism.

Rudolph Hess

Lebensraum• Hitler also outlined his

belief that the superior Aryan peoples needed living space and therefore had the right to seize territory through expansion and rule over the inferior masses of non-Aryans.

The Big Lie

• The only really original ideas in the book related to the use of mass propaganda and mass psychology.

• Hitler became the master of the “Big Lie.”

The Fuhrerprinzip

• When released from prison Hitler rebuilt the Nazi Party based on the Fuhrerprinzip – the belief in the absolute obedience to the leader.

•The Young Man’s Party

• By the time the depression hit in 1929, the Nazi Party had grown to be a highly structured national party with over 178,000 members – 40% of them under the age of thirty.

•The Great Depression

• When the Great Depression struck in 1929, he explained it as a Jewish-Communist plot, an explanation accepted by many Germans.

• Promising a strong Germany, jobs, and national glory, he attracted millions of voters.

• Nazi representation in the Reichstag (parliament) rose from 12 seats in 1928 to 107 in 1930.

Chancellor Heinrich Bruning

• The German Chancellor in 1930 was forced to rule by the use of emergency decrees from President Hindenburg.

•“Hitler over Germany”

• The Nazis began a massive campaign, traveling all over the country and appealing to national pride, honor and traditional militarism.

• Hitler’s message appealed to the industrial magnates, landed aristocrats, military establishment and higher bureaucrats who saw him as the best man to establish a right-wing government.

Chancellor Adolf Hitler

• On the advice of former chancellor Franz von Papen, Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor on January 30, 1933.

• Most leaders believed Hitler would be easily controlled.

Franz von Papen

Hitler

Goering Goebbels

Hess

Rohm

Tall like Goebbels; thin like Goering and blonde like Hitler…….

•Herman Goering

• Nazi Herman Goering became minister of the interior and established an interior police force made up of Nazi SA members.

•The Reichstag Fire

• When a mysterious fire burnt down the German Parliament building, Hitler convinced Hindenburg to grant him emergency powers.

The window into the building

• The Nazis blamed the Communists for the fire and made the incident a pretext to suppress the Communist party with brutal violence; later, the Social Democratic party was also violently suppressed.

•The Enabling Act

• Hitler quickly established himself as a dictator.

• A subservient legislature passed that permitted Hitler's government to make laws without the legislature.

• The act effectively made the legislature powerless.

• Hitler used the act to Nazify the bureaucracy and the judiciary, replace all labor unions with one Nazi-controlled German Labor Front, and ban all political parties except his own.

•The Gleichschaltung

• The economy, the media, and all cultural activities were brought under Nazi authority by making an individual's livelihood dependent on his or her political loyalty.

• Thousands of anti-Nazis were taken to concentration camps and all signs of dissent suppressed.

Burning the Books

The Economy and the Purges

• The most crucial problem the party leadership confronted on coming to power was unemployment.

• German industry was then operating at about 58 percent of capacity.

• Estimates of the number of unemployed people at that time in Germany vary from 6 to 7 million.

• Tens of thousands of party members expected Hitler to carry out the anti-capitalist promises of National Socialist propaganda.

• They wanted to put an end to the monopolistic enterprises and cartels, and revive industry through the establishment of a large number of small businesses.

•The Second Revolution

• The party rank and file now demanded a “second revolution.”

• The SA, led by Ernst Röhm, included control of the Reichswehr (the army) in the program of the second revolution.

• Hitler had to choose between a “plebeian” National Socialist regime and an alliance with the industrialists of the country and the general staff of the Reichswehr.

• He chose the latter course.

Long Knives

• On the evening of June 30, 1934, later known as the “night of the long knives,” Hitler ordered the SS to murder members of the unruly SA, a group Hitler feared would agitate the Reichswehr.

Ernst Röhm

• A number of SA and party leaders (including Röhm) and between 400 and 1000 of their followers, many of them innocent of any opposition to Hitler, were killed.

• Also included in the purge were other enemies such as General Kurt von Schleicher and some monarchists who had advocated restoration of the Hohenzollern dynasty.

General Kurt von Schleicher

The Third Reich

• On August 2, 1934, President Hindenburg died and Hitler became the sole leader of Germany.

• Public officials and soldiers were required to take an oath of loyalty to the “Fuhrer of the German Reich.”

Hitler Addresses the Reichstag

The Thousand Year Reich

• On August 19, 1934, a plebiscite of 85% of the voters established the new order – the Third Reich was born.

• Hitler declared it would last a thousand years –

It lasted a little longer than Ten

•The Nazi State

• Hitler now set out to establish an Aryan racial state that would dominate Europe and possibly the world.

Nuremburg Rallies

• Mass demonstrations were held every year to create mass enthusiasm for the “total state.”

The Gestapo

• Hitler relied on his secret police, the Gestapo, and on jails and camps to intimidate his opponents, but many Germans supported him enthusiastically.

Heinrich Himmler

The SS• After June 30 purge, the

SA were replaced by the armed and black-shirted Schutzstaffeln (protective units), or SS, known as the Elite Guard, under the direction of Heinrich Himmler.

• The SS, like the Gestapo, used violence and intimidation to exterminate dissenters, communists and Jews.

Hitler Youth• Still another important

party auxiliary was the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth organization), which prepared boys of 14 to 17 years of age for membership in the SA, the SS, and the party.

Hitler Youth Parade

“Terror is the most effective political instrument...It is my duty to make use of every means of training the German people to cruelty, and to prepare them for war...There must be no weakness or tenderness.”

Adolf Hitler

•The New Order

• The creation of the “new order,” or total control of the economy, enabled the Nazis to end unemployment; provide a tolerable standard of living; enrich the elite ruling group of the state and build a stupendous war machine.

Anti-Semitism

• The German Reich was meant to be an Aryan Empire and the Nazis quickly instituted anti-Semitic policies.

• On April 1, 1933, the Nazis instituted a two-day boycott of Jewish businesses.

• Laws were passed excluding non-Aryans from most professions.

The Nuremberg Laws

• In 1935, the Nazis enacted a series of laws that excluded German Jews from German citizenship and essentially separated Jews from German society.

Kristallnacht

• On November 9-10, 1938, the “Night of Shattered Glass,” the Nazis led a destructive rampage against Jewish businesses and synagogues.

• 100 Jews were killed in the violence and 30,000 Jewish males were rounded up and sent to concentration camps.