Structuralism v Intentionalism

1. Structuralism vIntentionalism Hitler’s Rise to Power

3. The Fascist State

4. Treaty of Versailles • Germany lost 13% of its territories in Europe & all if its colonies • Severely restricted armed forces • East Prussia & Germany separated by Poland • Ethnic Germans living outside Anschluss (Union); wanted to join Austria and Germany • Reparations • In 1921 6.6 million Today 33 billion

5. Weimer Republic • Kaiser Wilhelm II tries to install a more liberal form of government, but there were strikes and mutiny in the country so he abdicated. • Particularly in Ruhr France • New socialist government signed armistice • 1919 New democratic constitution • Too many fractions of political parties

6. 25 Point Program • National Socialist German Workers Party • Combined nationalist, socialist, racialist, anti-Semitic and anti-democratic ideas • Idea of New National Community • Feeling of new creation of New German Community • Class does not matter, only that you are German • Pan Germanism – Unite all Germanic people under one Gov.

7. Strurmabteilung (SA) • AKA — Brown Shirts • Attracted ex-soldiers who supported national values, lower middle-class workers and students who wanted political change

8. Mussolini • Hitler idolized him! He wanted to be like him! • Hitler’s plan to march into Berlin & have a Coup then establish a new government — “Munich Putsch” - - Bee Hall Putsch • Failed but proved to be a propagandist success • Was tried for treason • The trial gave him a national platform on which to speak…Newspapers throughout Germany and around the world reported his claim that he had led the movement against the ‘treasonable’ Weimar system • The court was also sympathetic to Hitler. Instead of sentencing him to death as it might have done, it gave him the minimum sentence for the offence – five years imprisonment. The judges also made it clear that he could expect an early release. In fact, Hitler served just nine months of his sentence.

9. Ruhr Occupation • The Ruhr occupation would last more than two and a half years. There is considerable debate about why the Ruhr occupation occurred, whether it was justified or pre-meditated. • The conventional view is that Paris ordered troops into the Ruhr reluctantly, because the Weimar government had deliberately failed to honor the terms of the Versailles treaty and the Reparations Commission. • But some evidence also suggests the Poincare government had been plotting to occupy the Ruhr since 1919. France had its own sizeable war debts to meet and were beginning to feel short-changed by the terms of Versailles. And there was much to be gained by occupying the Ruhr, which housed three quarters of Germany’s steel and coal production.

10. Mein Kampf • The original title Hitler chose was "Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice." His Nazi publisher knew better and shortened it to "Mein Kampf," simply My Struggle, or My Battle. • After Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, millions of copies were sold. It was considered proper to own a copy and to give one to newlyweds, high school graduates, or to celebrate any similar occasion. But few Germans ever read it cover to cover

11. Great Depression • The Weimar Republic had some of the most serious economic problems ever experienced by any Western democracy in history. Rampant hyperinflation, massive unemployment and a large drop in living standards were primary factors. • The crash and subsequent economic stagnation led to increased demands on Germany to repay the debts

12. Volksgemeinschaft • a German-language expression meaning "people's community". This expression originally became popular during World War I as Germans rallied in support of the war, and it appealed to the idea of breaking down elitism and uniting people across class divides to achieve a national purpose. • The mystic Utopia of the Volksgemeinschaft required that all its members be centred on the same goal, dedicated to hard work and prepared for self-sacrifice. Those who would not fit in – the ‘asocial’, the ‘workshy’, homosexuals, political opponents – and those who could not fit in – ‘aliens’, the ‘incurable’ – had to be excluded, even eradicated..

13. The structuralist approach was predominant and there was a tendency to paint Hitler as a “weak” dictator. However, this impression of totalitarian control through chaos is viewed by Structuralist historians as merely superficial. Structualist’s hold that the Nazi regime and its policies evolved from functional pressures, interpreting the confusion of the Nazi Governmental system, not as a tool for control, but as a reflection of the limits on Hitler’s power due to influence from other sources.

14. Historians such as Ian Kershaw have neither sided with Intentionalist’s or Structualist’s but rather proposed a synthesis of these two approaches. • Kershaw agrees that in no way did Hitler create a monolithic state and rather refers to the governmental structure as “a shambles of constantly shifting power bases and warring factions”. • He recognises that measures such as those taken towards the holocaust were enacted by lower ranking officials without the authorisation of Hitler, he also recognizes that much of Hitler’s power came from the way other people in government and the German people perceived him, not solely on his abilities as a dictator, in the form of “charismatic rule”. • Hitler, in Kershaw’s view, was indeed above party politics and ruthlessly pursued objectives which were clarified by those below him, but nevertheless he was structurally conditioned to sustain the successes on which his ‘charismatic’ power rested13. This helps us to explain the level of control Hitler was able to exercise despite not being able to directly control all elements of government.