Nazism and the Rise of Hitler

INTRODUCTION

In May 1945, Germany surrendered to the Allies. In April, Hitler, his propaganda Minister Goebbels
alongwith his family committed suicide in Hitler's Bunker.

• After the war, an International Military Tribunal was set up at Nuremberg to prosecute Nazi war
criminals to destroy.

• Germany had waged a genocidal war during the Second World War (1939-45) which resulted in killing
of 6 million Jews, 2 lakh Gypsies, 1 million Polish people, 70,000 Germans, besides many political
opponents.

The Nuremberg Tribunal sentenced only 11 Nazi leaders to death, many others were sentenced for life.
The punishment meted out to Nazis was far short of brutality and crimes committed by the Nazis. This is
because the Allies avoided being too harsh to defeated German people.

BIRTH OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC

In the early years of the twentieth century, Germany led the First World War (1914- 1918) along with
the Austrian Empire known as Central powers, against the Allied forces (England, France and Russia).

All resources of Europe were drained out because of the war which continued around four years.

Germany occupied France and Belgium in the beginning of the war.

But, unfortunately, the Allies, defeated Germany, with the help of the US entry in 1917. Finally, Central
Powers were defeated in November 1918.

• A meeting was held at Weimar, in which a democratic constitution with a federal structure was
established by the National Assembly.

In the German Parliament, deputies were elected on the basis of equal and universal adult franchise,
including women.

Germany was answerable for the war and the damages which the Allied countries suffered.

Finally the Allied armies occupied resource rich Rhineland of Germany in 1920s.

• The Treaty of Versailles was two harsh and humiliating for Germany.

She was to pay to £6 billion as war compensation.

• She was demilitarised, cost iron and coal deposits to Allies. Germany lost its overseas colonies.

The Effects of the War

• The burden of war guilt and national humiliation was carried by the Republic, which was financially
crippled by being forced to pay compensation.

Socialists, Catholics and Democrats who supported the Weimar Republic, were mockingly called the
'November criminals".

The First World War left a deep imprint on European society and polity.

Democracy was indeed a young and fragile idea which could not survive the instabilities of interwar
Europe.

Political Radicalism and Economic Crises

The birth of Weimar Republic's coincided with the revolutionary uprising of the Spartacist League on the
pattern of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.

The Weimar Republic crushed the uprising with the help of a war veterans organisation called Free
Corps. Communists and Socialists became enemies.

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. Germany refused
to pay, and the French occupied its leading industrial area, Ruhr, to claim their coal.

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 USA introduced the Dawes Plan, which reworked the terms of reparation to ease the
financial burden on Germans.

The Years of Depression

The years between 1924 and 1928 saw some stability. The support of short-term loans was withdrawn
when the Wall Street Exchange crashed in 1929.

The Great Economic Depression started, and over the next three years, between 1929 and 1932, the
national income of the USA fell by half.

The economy of Germany was the worst hit. Workers became jobless and went on streets with placards
saying, 'Willing to do any work'. Youths indulged themselves in criminal activities.
The middle class and small businessmen were filled with the fear of proletarianisation, anxiety of being
reduced to the ranks of the working class or unemployed.

Politically also, the Weimar Republic was fragile. The Weimar Constitution, due to some inherent
defects, made it unstable and vulnerable to dictatorship.

One inherent defect was proportional representation. Another defect was Article 48, which gave the
President the powers to impose emergency, suspend civil rights and rule by decree.

The crisis could not be managed and people lost confidence in parliamentary system.

HITLER'S RISE TO POWER

Hilter rose to power. He was born in 1889 in Austria and spent his youth in poverty. In the First World
War, he enrolled in the army, acted as a messenger in the war front, became a corporal, and earned
medals for bravery.

Hitler joined a small group called the German Workers' Party in 1919. He took over the organisation and
renamed it the National Socialist German Workers' Party, which later came to be known as the Nazi
Party.

In 1923, he planned to seize control of Bavaria, march to Berlin and capture power. During the Great
Depression, Nazism became a mass movement. After 1929, banks collapsed, businesses shut down,
workers lost their jobs, and the middle classes were threatened with destitution. In such a situation,
Nazi propaganda stirred hopes of a better future.

In 1928 the Nazi party got 2.6% votes in Parliament which rose to 33% votes in 1932.

Hitler was a powerful speaker, and his passion and his words moved people. In his speech, he promised
to build a strong nation, undo the injustice of the Versailles Treaty and restore the dignity of the German
people.

He also promised employment for those looking for work and a secure future for the youth. He
promised to remove all foreign influences and resist all foreign 'conspiracies against Germany.

Hitler started following a new style of politics, and his followers held massive rallies and public meetings
to demonstrate support. According to the Nazi propaganda, Hitler was called a messiah, a saviour, and
someone who had arrived to deliver people from their distress. This image captured the hope and
imagination of people, who were living in times of crises.

The Destruction of Democracy

President Hindenburg offered the Chancellorship, on 30 January 1933, the highest position in the
cabinet of ministers, to Hitler.
Hitler began to break democratic fabric with cunning and deceit.

The Fire Decree of 28 February 1933 suspended civic rights like freedom of speech, press and assembly
that had been guaranteed by the Weimar Constitution. On 3 March 1933, the famous Enabling Act was
passed, which established a dictatorship in Germany.

The state took control over the economy, media, army and judiciary. Apart from the already existing
regular police in a 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).

The police forces acquired powers to rule with impunity.

It was the illegal powers of these forces that made Nazis, a criminal state. Deportation, detention in
Gestapo torture cells and concentration camps began on large scale.

Reconstruction

Economic recovery was assigned to the economist Hjalmar Schacht by Hitler, who aimed at full
production and full employment through a state-funded work-creation programme. This project
produced the famous German superhighways and the people's car, the Volkswagen.

Hitler pulled out the League of Nations in 1933, reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936, and integrated
Austria and Germany in 1938 under the slogan, "One people. One empire and One leader".

• He then annexed Sudetenland and finally entire Czechoslovakia.. Schacht advised Hitler against
investing hugely in rearmament as the state still ran on deficit financing.

Cautious people, however, had no place in Nazi Germany. Schacht had to leave.

By the end of 1940, Hitler was at the pinnacle of his power. Now he moved to achieve his long-term aim
of conquering Eastern Europe. Finally the Second World War broke, out. (North Macedonia, Albania,
Armenia, Bosnia, Herzegovina Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, moldova, kosovo, Montenegro
Georgia, Hungary & Latvia Ükscore, Belarus Poland, slovakia, Romania Serbia Estonia Turkey)

Hitler aimed at getting food supplies and territory. He invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. It was a
historic blunder, as, the Red Army inflicted huge defeat on Germany at Stalingrad and steadily reached
the heart of Berlin

Although unwilling initially to enter the Second World War, USA was forced by aggression of Japan to
enter the war. When Japan extended its support to Hitler and bombed the US base Pearl Harbor, the US
was forced to enter it, with the allied powers.

The war ended in May 1945, with Hitler's defeat and in August US dropping atom bomb on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki in Japan.

THE NAZI WORLD VIEW

The racism of Hitler was borrowed from thinkers like Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer. The
argument of the Nazis was simple: the strongest race would survive, and the weak ones would perish.
The Aryan race was the finest who retained its purity, became stronger and dominated the world.

• The other aspect of Hitler's ideology related to the geopolitical concept of Lebensraum, or living space.
Hitler intended to extend German boundaries by moving eastwards to concentrate all Germans
geographically in one place. Poland became the laboratory for this experimentation.

Establishment of the Racial State

• Nazis came into power and quickly began to implement their dream of creating an exclusive racial
community of pure Germans. They wanted a society of 'pure and healthy Nordic Aryans'.

Under the Euthanasia Programme, Helmuth's father had condemned to death many Germans who were
considered mentally or physically unfit.

• Germany occupied Poland and parts of Russia, captured civilians and forced them to work as slave
labour. Jews remained the worst sufferers in Nazi Germany. Hitler hated

Jews based on pseudoscientific theories of race.

• From 1933 to 1938, the Nazis terrorised, pauperised and segregated the Jews, compelling them to
leave the country. The next phase, 1939-1945, aimed at concentrating them in certain areas and
eventually killing them in gas chambers in Poland.

The Racial Utopia

Genocide and war became two sides of the same coin. Poland was divided, and much of north-western
Poland was annexed to Germany.

• People of Poland were forced to leave their homes and properties. Members of the Polish
intelligentsia were murdered in large numbers, and Polish children who looked like Aryans were forcibly
snatched from their mothers and examined by 'race experts'.

The Nuremburg Laws

The Nuremberg Laws meant that the 'undesirables' had no rights to live along with the other citizens.
These included Jews, Gypsies, "Blacks' and other nationalities like Polish and Russian people.

These laws, promulgated in 1935, stated

(1) Only German or related blood would be German citizens, enjoying the protection of

the German Empire.

Other legal measures included:

Boycott of Jewish businesses.

Expulsion of Jews from government services.

Confiscation and forcible selling of the properties of Jews.

YOUTH IN NAZI GERMANY

Hitler was enthusiastically interested in the youth of the country. Schools were cleansed and purified.
Germans and Jews were not allowed to sit or play together. In the 1940s, Jews were taken to the gas
chambers.

• Introduction of racial science to justify Nazi ideas of race.

Children were taught to be loyal and submissive, hate Jews and worship Hitler. Youth organisations were
responsible for educating German youth in 'the spirit of National Socialism'.

At the age of 14, boys had to join the Nazi youth organisation where they were taught το worship war,
glorify aggression and violence, condemn democracy, and hate Jews, communists, Gypsies and all those
categorised as 'undesirable! સ્વનિક નિદ્ધા નારાના, મોથી મા શયથી કવારાનો.

• Later, they joined the Labour Service at the age of 18 and served in the armed forces and entered one
of the Nazi organisations.

• In 1922, the Youth League of the Nazis was founded. Four years later it was renamed as Hitler Youth.

The Nazi Cult of Motherhood

In Nazi Germany, children were told women were different from men. Boys were taught to be
aggressive, masculine and steel-hearted and girls were told to become good mothers and rear pure-
blooded Aryan children.

Girls had to maintain the purity of the race, distance themselves from Jews, look after their homes and
teach their children Nazi values.

But all mothers were not treated equally. Honours Crosses were awarded to those who encouraged
women to produce more 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

Nazis termed mass killings as special treatment, the final solution (for the Jews), euthanasia (for the
disabled), selection and disinfections.

• "Evacuation" meant deporting people to gas chambers. Gas chambers were labelled as "disinfection -
areas", and looked like bathrooms equipped with fake shower heads. Nazi ideas were spread through
visual images, films, radio, posters, catchy slogans and leaflets.

Orthodox Jews were stereotyped and marked and were referred to as vermin, rats and pests. The Nazis
made equal efforts to appeal to all the different sections of the population.

They sought to win their support by suggesting that Nazis alone could solve all their problems.

ORDINARY PEOPLE AND THE CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

• People started seeing the world through Nazi eyes and spoke their Nazi language. They felt hatred and
anger against Jews and genuinely believed Nazism would bring prosperity

and improve general well-being.

Pastor Niemoeller protested an uncanny silence amongst ordinary Germans against brutal and
organised crimes committed against people 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. Jews died many deaths even before they reached the gas
chamber.

Knowledge about the Holocaust

• The war ended and Germany was defeated. While Germans were preoccupied with their own plight,
the Jews wanted the world to remember the atrocities and sufferings they had endured during the Nazi
killing operations also called the Holocaust.

When they lost the war, the Nazi leadership distributed petrol to its functionaries to destroy all
incriminating evidence available in offices.

• Holocaust live on in memoirs, fiction, documentaries, poetry, memorials and museums in many parts
of world today.

• It was only after the war ended that people came to know about what had happened. The Jews
wanted the world to know about the atrocities and sufferings they had endured during the Nazi killing
operations. They just wanted to live, even if it was for a few hours, to tell the world about the Holocaust.