Nazism and the Rise of Hitler Notes PDF

NAZISM AND THE RISE OF HITLER- Notes Nuremberg tribunal  International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg was set up to prosecute Nazi war criminals for Crimes against Peace, for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.  Germany’s conduct during the war, especially those actions wh...

NAZISM AND THE RISE OF HITLER- Notes Nuremberg tribunal  International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg was set up to prosecute Nazi war criminals for Crimes against Peace, for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.  Germany’s conduct during the war, especially those actions which came to be called Crimes Against Humanity, raised serious moral and ethical questions and invited worldwide condemnation.  The Nuremberg Tribunal sentenced only eleven leading Nazis to death. Many others were imprisoned for life. BIRTH OF WEIMAR REPUBLIC  The First World War (1914-1918) put a dent in Germany after they were defeated by the Austrian Empire and the allies including England, France, & Russia.  In November 1918, Germany was swiftly defeated by the help of US entry. German-occupied France and Belgium were freed, and Germany was drained of all its resources.  The national assembly gathered at Weimar and established a democratic constitution with a federal structure. In the parliament, deputies were elected with everyone allowed to cast votes including women.  The Treaty of Versailles was signed from which Germany lost all its overseas colonies and its resources, putting them in humiliation. Humiliating Conditions Of Treaty Of Versailles:  Germany was held responsible for the war damages  Germany was demilitarized  It was forced to pay compensation amounting to £6 billion  Resource rich Rhineland was occupied by the Allied powers  Germany lost its overseas colonies, a tenth of its population, 13% of its territories, 75% of its iron and 26% of its coal to France, Poland, Denmark And Lithuania. EFFECTS OF WORLD WAR I  The war destabilized the whole continent, mentally & financially. From being a creditor, Europe became a debtor.  The social structure now puts soldiers above civilians, glorifying war and martyrdom.  Soldiers had a difficult life in trenches facing dangers and death.  November Criminals was the name thrown around to every socialist, Catholic, & democrat in support of the Weimar republic. The Republic was forced to pay compensation.  Democracy at that time could not hold the weight of the trauma of the war paving the way to more radical politics & aggressive propaganda. POLITICAL RADICALISM AND ECONOMIC CRISIS  With the birth and rise of Weimar had a severe impact on society which could be seen in a variety of arena.  The historical coincidence of Weimar’s birth with the revolution of the Spartacist League against the pattern of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia.  Free Corps, a war veteran organization, helped crush the Spartacist League uprising while the Catholics, Socialists & Democrats met in Weimar for a democratic republic.  Spartacists started the communist party in Germany.  Both revolutionaries and nationalists wanted extreme solutions.  The French crept into Ruhr of Germany, an industrial area where they rebelled against the paying of gold.  The value of the German Mark Fell. The US Dollar was equal to 24,000 marks in April 1923 and by August, it was equal to 46,21,000 marks. Prices soared and there was an economic crisis in Germany.  The Economic crisis soon developed into Hyperinflation. People carried cartons of currency to buy a loaf of bread which grabbed media attention worldwide. THE YEARS OF DEPRESSION  1924-1928 saw Germany stabilizing slightly.  Short term loans from the USA helped slowly sustain the economy. But the crash of Wall Street in 1929 stopped the influx of cash. The great economic depression started taking over.   In 1932, industrial work was cut down by about 40% accounting for the unemployment of 6 million people. Unemployed youth turned to crime and the despair was widespread.  The whole country lived in fear of the future and proletarianization (impoverishment of the working class).  Farmers suffered from falling agricultural prices and women struggled to feed their families  Suspended civil rights, rule by decree, and imposing emergency were some powers of the President due to Article 48.  The democratic parliamentary system lost the trust of the public. HISTORY OF HITLER’S RISE TO POWER  Adolf Hitler was born in the year 1889 and raised in Austria. He enrolled in the army during World War I and acted as a messenger and soon was promoted to Corporal.  In 1919, he joined a small communist party named the German Workers Party. He soon took hold over the party and renamed it as National Socialist German Workers; later called the Nazi party.  Bavaria was the first target of Hitler and planned to seize it. He launched an attack in 1923 but failed. After 1929, the whole economic crisis was tearing apart the middle-class families of Germany.  It was during the Great Depression that Nazism became a mass movement. Hitler tried his hands at elections, but in 1929 his party only won 3.2% of the votes, though it soon became the largest party in 1932 by winning 37% votes in Reichstag, Germany.  He was a powerful speaker. He promised people a strong nation, employment to youth, a secure future and to restore the dignity of the Germans.  He sidelined the parliament by his powers and rule by decree. All other political parties and trade unions were disbanded forcefully, only the Nazi party remained.  Nazis held massive rallies and public meetings to demonstrate their support for Hitler and instill a sense of unity among people. RECONSTRUCTION   Hjalmar Schacht was appointed by Hitler to recover the economy who employed full production and full employment through a state-funded work- creation programme.  Hitler removed Germany from the League of Nations in 1933, cemented his position in Rhineland in 1936, and integrated Austria & Germany in 1938.  Hitler then planned to wage war to gain resources out of the economic crisis. In 1939, he invaded Poland and declared war on France & England.  In 1940, Germany sealed the tripartite pact with Italy and Japan. He attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, while the USA kept its distance from the war.  When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, a US naval base, the USA had to reluctantly enter the war.  In 1945, the US bombed Hiroshima with the atomic bomb, ending the war and bringing Hitler to his knees. ESTABLISHMENT OF RACIAL STATE AND THE NAZI WORLDVIEW  A racial hierarchy system ruled the minds of Nazism followers. They believed that the Nordic German Aryans were the purest humans, all other races in the middle and the Jews were at the bottom.  They began systematically removing other races to create a pure German Aryan community in Germany.  Jews were hugely persecuted in this racial war. Not allowed to own lands, they were thrown in concentration camps and forced to leave their own home and concludingly their numbers dwindled.  The survivors of the Jew extermination, also known as the Holocaust, started sharing their stories with the world.  Hitler’s idea of establishing Nazi ideology at the root level was soul- shaking. Schools were taught the Nazi approach and boys were taught masculine aggression.  Those Children of Jews who were physically handicapped or undesirable were thrown into gas chambers.  The number of deaths reached upwards of 2.7 million, almost all Jews during the Holocaust.  In History, Hitler is remembered as the ruthless leader who brainwashed an entire generation and fed them fascist ideals. YOUTH IN NAZI GERMANY All schools were cleansed and purified means Jews teachers were dismissed.  Jews, the physically handicapped and Gypsies were thrown out of schools and later sent to the gas chambers. A prolonged period of ideological training for good German students. School textbooks were rewritten. Racial science was introduced to justify Nazi ideas of race. Children were taught to be loyal and submissive, hate Jews, and worship Hitler. Ten-year-olds had to enter Jungvolk. At 14, all boys had to join the Nazi youth organisation – Hitler Youth. They were taught to worship war, glorify aggression and violence, condemn democracy, and hate Jews, communists, Gypsies and all those categorised as ‘undesirable’. They joined the Labour Service at 18 and served in the armed forces and entered one of the Nazi organisations. In 1922, the Youth League of the Nazis was founded. THE NAZI CULT OF MOTHERHOOD Boys were taught to be aggressive, masculine and steel hearted. Girls had to become good mothers and rear pure-blooded Aryan children. All mothers were not treated equally. Women who bore racially undesirable children were punished. Women who produced racially desirable children were awarded. Honour Crosses were awarded to encourage women to produce many children. Bronze cross for four children, silver for six and gold for eight or more Women who maintained contact with Jews, Poles and Russians were paraded through the town with shaved heads, blackened faces and placards hanging around their necks announcing, ‘I have sullied the honour of the nation’. THE ART OF PROPAGANDA The Nazi regime used language and media with care and often to great effect.  Media was used to win support for the regime and popularize the world view.  Mass killing was termed ‘special treatment’, ‘final solution’ for the jews, euthanasia for the disabled, selections and disinfections.  Nazi ideas were spread through images, films, radio, posters, catchy slogans and leaflets.  Socialists and liberals were shown as weak and degenerate and attacked as foreign agents.   Propaganda films created hatred for the Jews and referred to them as vermin, rats and pests. The most infamous film was ‘The Eternal Jew’.  Orthodox Jews were stereotyped and marked. CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY  People started seeing the world through Nazi eyes and spoke their Nazi language.  The Jews themselves began believing in Nazi stereotypes about themselves like having hooked noses, black hair and eyes, Jewish looks and body movements.  They marked the houses of the Jews and reported suspicious neighbours to the Police.  They believed Nazism would bring prosperity and improve general well- being.  Many Germans were afraid to oppose Nazism because they would be put to death for opposing the Nazis.  Pastor Niemoeller protested an uncanny silence amongst ordinary Germans against brutal and organised crimes committed in the Nazi empire. Charlotte Beradt’s book called ‘The Third Reich of Dreams’ describes how Jews themselves began believing in the Nazi stereotypes about them. THE HOLOCAUST  Only after Germany was defeated in the Second World War, the world came to see and realized the horrors of what had happened to the undesirables in Germany.  Jews collected and preserved documents wrote diaries, kept notebooks, and created archives which are called the Holocaust.  Jews wanted the world to remember the atrocities and sufferings they had endured during the Nazi killing operations.  When the war seemed lost, the Nazi leadership distributed petrol to its functionaries to destroy all incriminating evidence in offices.  The memory of the holocaust lives on in memories, fiction, memorials and museums in parts of the world today.