Hitler's Rise to Power PDF

# Nazism and the Rise of Hitler ## Germany, a Powerful Empire - Germany, a powerful empire in the early years of the twentieth century, fought the First World War (1914-1918) alongside the Austrian empire and against the Allies (England, France and Russia). - All joined the war enthusiastically h...

# Nazism and the Rise of Hitler ## Germany, a Powerful Empire - Germany, a powerful empire in the early years of the twentieth century, fought the First World War (1914-1918) alongside the Austrian empire and against the Allies (England, France and Russia). - All joined the war enthusiastically hoping to gain from a quick victory. - However, the Allies, strengthened by the US entry in 1917, won defeating Germany and the Central Powers in November 1918. - The defeat of Imperial Germany and the abdication of the emperor allowed parliamentary parties to recast German polity. - A National Assembly met at Weimar and established a democratic constitution with a federal structure - Deputies were elected to the German Parliament or Reichstag, on the basis of equal and universal votes cast by all adults including women. - This republic, however, was not received well by its own people largely because of the terms it was forced to accept after Germany's defeat at the end of the First World War. ## The Effects of the War - The war had a devastating impact on the entire continent both psychologically and financially. - Europe turned from a continent of creditors to one of debtors. - The infant Weimar Republic was being made to pay for the sins of the old empire. - It carried the burden of war guilt and national humiliation and was financially crippled by being forced to pay compensation. - Those who supported the Weimar Republic (mainly Socialists, Catholics and Democrats) became easy targets of attack in the conservative nationalist circles. - They were mockingly called the 'November criminals'. - This mindset had a major impact on the political developments of the early 1930s. - The First World War left a deep imprint on European society and polity. - Soldiers came to be placed above civilians. - Politicians and publicists laid great stress on the need for men to be aggressive, strong and masculine. - Aggressive war propaganda and national honour occupied centre stage in the public sphere, while popular support grew for conservative dictatorships that had recently come into being. - Democracy was a young and fragile idea, which could not survive the instabilities of interwar Europe. ## Political Radicalism and Economic Crises - The birth of the Weimar Republic coincided with the revolutionary uprising of the Spartacist League on the pattern of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. - Soviets of workers and sailors were established. - Versailles with the Allies was a harsh and humiliating peace. - Germany lost its overseas colonies, a tenth of its population, 13 per cent of its territories, 75 per cent of its iron and 26 per cent of its coal to France, Poland, Denmark and Lithuania. - The Allied Powers demilitarised Germany to weaken its power. - The War Guilt Clause held Germany responsible for the war and damages the Allied countries suffered. - Germany was forced to pay compensation amounting to £6 billion. - The Allied armies also occupied the resource-rich Rhineland for much of the 1920s. - Many Germans held the new Weimar Republic responsible for not only the defeat in the war but the disgrace at Versailles. - The political atmosphere in Berlin was charged with demands for Soviet-style governance. - Those opposed to this (the socialists, Democrats and Catholics) met in Weimar to give shape to the democratic republic. - The Weimar Republic crushed the uprising with the help of a war veterans organisation called Free Corps. - The anguished Spartacists later founded the Communist Party of Germany. - Communists and Socialists henceforth became irreconcilable enemies and could not make common cause against Hitler. - Both revolutionaries and militant nationalists craved for radical solutions. - Political radicalisation was only heightened by the economic crisis of 1923. - Germany had fought the war largely on loans and had to pay war reparations in gold. - This depleted gold reserves at a time resources were scarce. - In 1923, Germany refused to pay, and the French occupied its leading industrial area, Ruhr, to claim their coal. - Germany retaliated with passive resistance and printed paper currency recklessly. - With too much printed money in circulation, the value of the German mark fell. - In April the US dollar was equal to 24,000 marks, in July 353,000 marks, in August 4,621,000. - In the winter of 1918-1919 the streets of Berlin were taken over by the people. - Political demonstrations became common. - The German mark had so little value that vast amounts had to be used even for small payments. - As the value of the mark collapsed, prices of goods soared. - The image of Germans carrying cartloads of currency notes to buy a loaf of bread was widely publicised evoking worldwide sympathy. - This crisis came to be known as hyperinflation, a situation when prices rise phenomenally high. - Eventually, the Americans intervened and bailed Germany out of the crisis by introducing the Dawes Plan, which reworked the terms of reparation to ease the financial burden on Germans. - The years between 1924 and 1928 saw some stability. Yet this was built on sand. - German investments and industrial recovery were totally dependent on short-term loans, largely from the USA. - This support was withdrawn when the Wall Street Exchange crashed in 1929. - Fearing a fall in prices, people made frantic efforts to sell their shares. - On one single day, 24 October, 13 million shares were sold. - This was the start of the Great Economic Depression. - Over the next three years, between 1929 and 1932, the national income of the USA fell by half. - Factories shut down, exports fell, farmers were badly hit and speculators withdrew their money from the market. - The effects of this recession in the US economy were felt worldwide. - The German economy was the worst hit by the economic crisis. - By 1932, industrial production was reduced to 40 per cent of the 1929 level. - Workers lost their jobs or were paid reduced wages. - The number of unemployed touched an unprecedented 6 million. - On the streets of Germany you could see men with placards around their necks saying, 'Willing to do any work'. - Unemployed youths played cards or simply sat at street corners, or desperately queued up at the local employment exchange. - As jobs disappeared, the youth took to criminal activities and total despair became commonplace. - The economic crisis created deep anxieties and fears in people. - The middle classes, especially salaried employees and pensioners, saw their savings diminish when the currency lost its value. - Small businessmen, the self-employed and retailers suffered as businesses got ruined. - These sections of society were filled with the fear of proletarianisation, an anxiety of being reduced to the ranks of the working class, or worse still, the unemployed. - Only organised workers could manage to keep their heads above water, but unemployment weakened their bargaining power. - Big business was in crisis. - The large mass of peasantry was affected by a sharp fall in agricultural prices and women, unable to fill their children's stomachs, were filled with a sense of deep despair. ## Politically too the Weimar Republic was fragile. - The Weimar constitution had some inherent defects, which made it unstable and vulnerable to dictatorship. - One was proportional representation. - This made achieving a majority by any one party a near impossible task, leading to a rule by coalitions. - Another defect was Article 48, which gave the President the powers to impose emergency, suspend civil rights and rule by decree. - People lost confidence in the democratic parliamentary system, which seemed to offer no solutions. - This crisis in the economy, polity and society formed the background to Hitler's rise to power. ## Hitler's Rise to Power - Born in 1889 in Austria, Hitler spent his youth in poverty. - When the First World War broke out, he enrolled for the army, acted as a messenger in the front, became a corporal, and earned medals for bravery. - The German defeat horrified him and the Versailles Treaty made him furious. - In 1919, he joined a small group called the German Workers' Party. - He subsequently took over the organisation and renamed it the National Socialist German Workers' Party. - This party came to be known as the Nazi Party. - In 1923, Hitler planned to seize control of Bavaria, march to Berlin and capture power. - He failed, was arrested, tried for treason, and later released. - The Nazis could not effectively mobilise popular support till the early 1930s. - It was during the Great Depression that Nazism became a mass movement. - In 1928, the Nazi Party got no more than 2.6 per cent votes in the Reichstag, the German parliament. - By 1932, it had become the largest party with 37 per cent votes. - Hitler was a powerful speaker. - His passion and his words moved people. - He promised to build a strong nation, undo the injustice of the Versailles Treaty and restore the dignity of the German people. - He promised employment for those looking for work, and a secure future for the youth. - He promised to weed out all foreign influences and resist all foreign 'conspiracies' against Germany. - Hitler devised a new style of politics. - He understood the significance of rituals and spectacle in mass mobilisation. - Nazis held massive rallies and public meetings to demonstrate the support for Hitler and instil a sense of unity among the people. - The Red banners with the Swastika, the Nazi salute, and the ritualised rounds of applause after the speeches were all part of this spectacle of power. - An important aspect of these was the demonstration of Nazi power as various organisations paraded past Hitler, swore loyalty and listened to his speeches. - Nazi propaganda skilfully projected Hitler as a messiah, a saviour, as someone who had arrived to deliver people from their distress. - It is an image that captured the imagination of a people whose sense of dignity and pride had been shattered, and who were living in a time of acute economic and political crises. ## Destruction of Democracy - On 30 January 1933, President Hindenburg offered the Chancellorship, the highest position in the cabinet of ministers, to Hitler. - By now the Nazis had managed to rally the conservatives to their cause. - Having acquired power, Hitler set out to dismantle the structures of democratic rule. - A mysterious fire that broke out in the German Parliament building in February facilitated his move. - The Fire Decree of 28 February 1933 indefinitely suspended civic rights like freedom of speech, press and assembly that had been guaranteed by the Weimar constitution. - Then he turned on his enemies, the Communists, most of whom were hurriedly packed off to the newly established concentration camps. - The repression of the Communists was severe. - On 3 March 1933, the famous Enabling Act was passed. - This Act 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 for the Nazi Party and its affiliates. - The state established complete control over the economy, media, army and judiciary. - Special surveillance and security forces were created to control and order society in ways that the Nazis wanted. - Apart from the already existing regular police in green uniform and the SA or the Storm Troopers, these included the Gestapo (secret state police), the SS (the protection squads), criminal police and the Security Service (SD). - It was the extra-constitutional powers of these newly organised forces that gave the Nazi state its reputation as the most dreaded criminal state. - People could now be detained in Gestapo torture chambers, rounded up and sent to concentration camps, deported at will or arrested without any legal procedures. - The police forces acquired powers to rule with impunity.