Hitler and the Rise of Nazi Germany

1. Hitler and the Rise of Nazi Germany Bell Work #4 During world war ii rationing was commonplace but rationing did not effect most people not seriously

2. Hitler and Germany In November 1923, a German army veteran and leader of an extremist party, Adolf Hitler, tried to take a page from Mussolini’s book. Hitler’s rise to power is one of the most significant events of our century. His success raised disturbing questions that we still debate today. How did Germany, which had a liberal democratic government in the 1920s, become a totalitarian dictatorship in the 1930s? Why did Hitler gain the enthusiastic support of many Germans?

4. Struggles of the Weimar Republic In 1919, the new German Republic drafted a constitution in the city of Weimar. It ceated a democratic government known as the Weimar Republic. The constitution set up a parliamentary form of government led by a prime minister, or chancellor. It gave both women and men the vote, and included a bill of rights. The Weimar government faced severe problems form the start. Politically, it was weak because Germany had many small parties. Like French Premier, the German chancellor had to form coalitions that easily fell apart.

5. Germany Germans of all classes blamed the government for the hated Versailles treaty, with its war guilt clause and heavy reparations. In their bitterness , they looked for escape goats. Many accused Marxist and Jews of an imaginary conspiracy to betray Germany. Germans turned to an energetic Leader, Adolf Hitler, who promised to solve the economic crisis and restore German greatness.

6. Adolf Hitler Hitler was born in Austria in 1889, When he was 18, he went to Vienna, hoping to enter art school, but he was turned down. Austrian Germans were a minority, but they felt superior to Jews, Serbs, Poles, and other ethnic or religious groups. Hitler developed the fanatical anti-Semitism that would later play a major role in his rise to power. Hitler late moved to Germany and fought in the German army during WWI. Like many ex-soldiers he despised the Weimar government. In 1919, he joined a small group of right wing extremists. Within a year, he was the unquestioned leader of the National Socialist German Workers, or Nazi, party. Like Mussolini, Hitler organized his supporters into fighting squads. Nazi “Storm Troopers” battled in the streets against communist and others they saw as enemies.

7. Mein Kampf Mein Kampf reflected Hitler's obsession extreme nationalism, racism, and anti-Semitism. Germans, he said, belonged to a superior “master race” of Aryans, or light-skinned Europeans, whose greatest enemy were the Jews. Hitler viewed Jews not as members of a religion but as a separate race. Echoing a familiar theme, he claimed that Germany had not lost the war but had been betrayed by Marxist, Jews, corrupt politicians, and business leaders. Germany must expand, he said, to gain Lebensraum, or living space, for its people. Slavs and other inferior races must bow to Aryan needs. Top achieve its greatness, Germany needed a strong leader, Hitler was determined to become that leader.

8. The Road to Power After leaving prison, Hitler renewed his table-thumping speeches. He found enthusiastic followers among veterans and lower-middle-class people who felt frustrated about the future. The Great Depression played into Hitler’s hands. Hitler’s program appealed to workers and business people alike. He promised to end reparations, create jobs, and rearm Germany. Finally, in 1933, other conservative politicians decided Hitler must become chancellor. They despised him as a vulgar rabble rouser but planned to use him for their own ends. Thus, like Mussolini in Italy, Hitler became head of state through legal means.

9. Road to Power Within a year, Hitler was master of Germany. He suspended civil rights, destroyed the Communists, and disbanded other political parties. Germany became a one party state. Hitler purged his own party, brutally executing Nazis he felt were disloyal.

10. Hitler’s Third Reich Once in power, Hitler moved to build a new Germany. Like Mussolini, Hitler appealed to nationalism by recalling past glories. Germany’s First Reich, or empire, was the medieval Holy Roman Empire. The Second Reich was the empire forged by Bismarck in 1871. Under Hitler’s new Third Reich, he boasted, the German master race would dominate Europe for 1,000 years. He began scheming to unite Germany and Austria. “Today Germany belongs to us,” sang young Nazis. “Tomorrow, the world.” To achieve his goals, Hitler organized a brutal system of terror, repression, and totalitarian rule. Nazis controlled all areas of German life form government to religion to schools. Few Germans saw or worried about this terror apparatus taking shape. Instead, they cheered Hitler’s accomplishments in ending unemployment and reviving German power.

11. Purging German Culture School courses and textbooks were rewritten to reflect Nazi racial views. “We teach and learn history,” said one Nazi educator, “ not to say how things actually happened but to instruct the German people form the past.” At huge public bonfires, Nazis burned books of which they disapproved. Hitler despised Christianity as “weak” and “flabby.” He sought to replace religion with his racial creed. In an attempt to control the churches, the Nazis combined all Protestant sects into a single state church. They closed Catholic schools and muzzled the Catholic clergy.

12. Campaign Against the Jews In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws placed severe restrictions on Jews. They were prohibited from marrying non-Jews, attending or teaching at German schools or universities, holding government jobs, practicing law or medicine, or publishing books. Nazis beat and robbed Jews and roused mobs to do the same. Many Jews, including Albert Einstein, fled the growing menace. In November 1938, a German diplomat in Paris was shot by a young Jew whose parents had been mistreated in Germany. Hitler used the incident as an excuse to attack all Jews.

13. Night of the Broken Glass Dead silence not a sound to be heard in the town. The lamps in the street, the lights in the shops and in the houses are out. It is 3:30 A.M.” In the German town of Emden, a small Jewish boy was sleeping peacefully in his bed. Then, he recalled, the peace was shattered: “Of a sudden noises in the street break into my sleep, a wild medley of shouts and shrieks. I listen, frightened and alarmed, until I distinguish words: ‘Get out, Jews! Death to the Jews!” For this boy and for other Jews all over Germany, it was the beginning of a nightmare, This was Kristallnacht, or Night of the Broken Glass.

15. Two Night of Terror November 9 and 10, 1938. Nazi led mobs attacked Jewish communities all over Germany. They smashed windows, looted shops, and burned synagogues. As the family stumbled downstairs, a gun was fired. “I am Hit!” cried the boy’s father. Still, the Storm Troopers forced the injured man and his family into the street. There, they watched in terror as other homes were plundered and Jews were beaten.

16. Aftermath Kristallnacht brought such bad publicity to Hitler’s Germany that it was not repeated. Yet Hitler made the Jewish victims pay for the damage. Ten of thousands of Jews were later sent to concentration camps, detention centers for civilians considered enemies of a state. Before long, Hitler and his henchmen were making even more sinister plans for what they would call the “final solution” the extermination of all Jews. Despite the warnings of some courageous Germans who realized what was happening, most individuals ignored the ugly side of Nazi rule. Those who opposed Nazism were not united and were soon silenced or sent to concentration camps. While Hitler won absolute power at home, he moved boldly to expand Germany’s power in Europe. Nazi aggression set the stage for the largest war the world has yet seen.