Nazism and the

Rise of Hitler
In the spring of 1945, a little eleven-year-old German boy called
Helmuth was lying in bed when he overheard his parents discussing
something in serious tones. His father, a prominent physician,
deliberated with his wife whether the time had come to kill the entire
family, or if he should commit suicide alone. His father spoke about
his fear of revenge, saying, ‘Now the Allies will do to us what we did to
the crippled and Jews.’ The next day, he took Helmuth to the woods,
where they spent their last happy time together, singing old children’s
songs. Later, Helmuth’s father shot himself in his office. Helmuth
remembers that he saw his father’s bloody uniform being burnt in the
family fireplace. So traumatised was he by what he had overheard and what had happened, that
he reacted by refusing to eat at home for the following nine years! He was afraid that his
mother might poison him.
Although Helmuth may not have realised all that it meant, his father
had been a Nazi and a supporter of Adolf Hitler.
In May 1945, Germany surrendered to the Allies. Anticipating
what was coming, Hitler, his propaganda minister
Goebbels and his entire family committed suicide
collectively in his Berlin bunker in April.
 THE NUREMBERG TRIALS
At the end of the war, an 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 at the end of the war, an
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 The defendants’ box at
the Nuremberg trials
ethical questions and invited worldwide
condemnation.
Under the shadow of the Second World War, Germany had waged
a genocidal war, which resulted in the mass murder of selected
groups of innocent civilians of Europe. The number of people killed
included 6 million Jews, 200,000 Gypsies, 1 million Polish civilians,
70,000 Germans who were considered mentally and physically
disabled, besides innumerable political opponents. Nazis devised
an unprecedented means of killing people, that is, by gassing them in
various killing centres like Auschwitz. The Nuremberg Tribunal
sentenced only eleven leading Nazis to death. Many others were
imprisoned for life. The retribution did come, yet the punishment
of the Nazis was far short of the brutality and extent of their crimes.
 WEIMAR REPUBLIC
•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. Little did they realise that the war
would stretch on, eventually draining Europe of all its resources. Germany made initial gains by occupying
France and Belgium. 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 gave an opportunity to parliamentary
parties to recast German polity.

•A National Assembly met at Weimar and established a democratic constitution with a federal structure.
Deputies were now elected to the German Parliament or Reichstag, on the basis of equal and
•universal votes cast by all adults including women.
 The Treaty of 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 EFFECTS OF THE WAR
The war had a devastating impact on the entire continent both psychologically and financially.
From a continent of creditors, Europe turned into one of debtors. Unfortunately, the infant
Weimar Republic was being made to pay for the sins of the old empire. The
republic 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.
 The media glorified trench life.
The truth, however, was that soldiers lived miserable lives in these trenches, trapped with rats
feeding on corpses. They faced poisonous gas and enemy shelling, and witnessed their ranks
reduce rapidly. 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.
 1.  Nearly 10 million soldiers died and about 21 million were wounded.
U.S. deaths totalled 116,516.
. 2.  Four empires collapsed: the Russian Empire in 1917, the German
and the Austro-Hungarian in 1918, and the Ottoman in 1922.
3.  Independent republics were formed in Austria, Czechoslovakia,
Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, and Turkey.
4.  Most Arab lands that had been part of the Ottoman Empire came
under the control of Britain and France.
5.  The Bolsheviks took power in Russia.
6.  Under the peace settlement, Germany was required to pay
reparations eventually set at $33 billion; accept responsibility for the
war; cede territory to Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France,
and Poland; give up its overseas colonies; and accept an allied
military force on the west bank of the Rhine River for 15 years
 POLITICAL RADICALISM AND
ECONOMIC CRISES
The birth of the Weimar republic coincided with Bolshevik revolution of
the Spartacist League in the period between 1918-1920. The Spartacist
league was founded by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg .
The political atmosphere in Berlin was charged with
demands for Soviet-style governance. Those opposed to this – such
as 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 Karl Liebknecht
enemies and could not make common cause against Hitler.
Both revolutionaries and militant nationalists craved for radical
solutions.

Vladimir Lenin
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 marks and at
98,860,000 marks by December, the figure had run into trillions.
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 OF DEPRESSION
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.
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. Within its short
life, the Weimar Republic saw twenty different cabinets lasting on
an average 239 days, and a liberal use of Article 48. Yet the crisis
could not be managed.
 HITLER’S RISE TO POWER
This crisis in the economy, polity and society formed the
background
to 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.
 BEER HALL PUTSCH

The Beer Hall Putsch (also known as the Munich Putsch, but in German referred to as

the Hitlerputsch or the Hitler-Ludendorff-Putsch) was a failed attempt at revolution
that occurred between the evening of 8 November and the early afternoon of 9
November 1923, when Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler, Generalquartiermeister Erich
Ludendorff, and other heads of the Kampfbund unsuccessfully tried to seize power
in Munich, Bavaria, and Germany. Putsch is the Germanword for a military coup
d'état.

Beer halls in the early 20th century existed in most larger southern German cities,
where hundreds or even thousands of people were able to gather during the evenings,
drink beer and often engage in political or social [Link] beerhall where this was
launched is called “Bürgerbräukeller”
 The Nazis could not effectively mobilise
popular support till the early 1930s. It was
during the Great Depression that Nazism
became a mass movement. As we have seen,
after 1929, banks collapsed and 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 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.
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
 THE DESTRUCTION OF DEMOCRACY
On 30 January 1933, President Paul Von 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 archenemies,
the Communists, most of whom were hurriedly packed
off
to the newly established concentration camps.
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.

The new security forces include = Gestapo

Schutzstaffel (SS)
Stoßtruppen (SA)
Sicherheitsdienst (SD)
 SICHERHEITSDIENST

 Agency overview
 Formed :1932
 Preceding agency Ic-Dienst 1931
 DissolvedMay 8, 1945
 Jurisdiction Germany,Occupied Europe
 Headquarters Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, Berlin
Employees 6,482 February 1944
 Minister responsible Heinrich Himmler1931–1945,Reichsführer-SS
GESTAPO
 Agency overview
 FormedApril 26, 1933
 Preceding agency Prussian Secret Police
Founded 1851.
 DissolvedMay 8, 1945
 Jurisdiction Germany,Occupied Europe
 HeadquartersPrinz-Albrecht-Straße, Berlin
 Employees32,000 c.1944
 Ministers responsibleHermann Göring 1933–1934, Minister President of Prussia
Wilhelm Frick 1936-1943 (nominal authority), Interior Minister
Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, Chef der Deutschen Polizei, 1936–1945; Interior
Minister, 1943–1945
SCHUTZSTAFFEL

Agency overview
Formed 1925
Preceding agencies  Sturmabteilung
 Stabswache
Dissolved May 8, 1945
Jurisdiction  Germany
German-occupied Europe
Headquarters SS-Hauptamt, Prinz-Albrecht-
Straße, Berlin
52°30′26″N 13°22′57″E

Employees 1,250,000 (c. February 1945)

Ministers responsible Adolf Hitler, Führer

Heinrich
Himmler, Reichsführer
THE NAZI WORLDVIEW
Nazi ideology was synonymous with Hitler’s worldview. According to this there
was no equality between people, but only a racial hierarchy. In this view blond,
blue-eyed, Nordic German Aryans were at the top, while Jews were located at the
lowest rung.
They came to be regarded as an anti-race, the arch-enemies of the Aryans.
All other coloured people were placed in between depending upon their external
features. Hitler’s racism borrowed from thinkers like Charles Darwin and Herbert
Spencer .
The Nazi argument was simple: the strongest race would
survive and the weak ones would perish. The Aryan race was the
finest. It had to retain its purity, become stronger and dominate 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.
Source A
‘For this earth is not allotted to anyone nor is it presented to anyone as a gift. It
is awarded by providence to people who in their hearts have the courage to
conquer it, the strength to preserve it, and the industry to put it to the plough…
The primary right of this world is the right to life, so far as one possesses the
strength for this. Hence on the basis of this right a vigorous nation will always
find ways of adapting its territory to its population size.’
Hitler, Secret Book, ed. Telford Taylor.

Source B
‘In an era when the earth is gradually
being divided up among states, some of
which embrace almost entire continents,
we can not speak of a world power in
connection with a formation whose
political mother country is limited to the
absurd area of five hundred kilometers.’
Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 644.
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE RACIAL STATE
Nazis wanted only a society of ‘pure and healthy Nordic Aryans’. They alone were
considered ‘desirable’. Only they were seen as worthy of prospering and multiplying
against all others who were classed as ‘undesirable’. This meant that even those
Germans who were seen as impure or abnormal had no right to exist.
Jews were not the only community classified as ‘undesirable’. There were others. Many
Gypsies and blacks living in Nazi Germany were considered as racial ‘inferiors’ who
threatened the biological purity of the ‘superior Aryan’ race. They were widely
persecuted.
Even Russians and Poles were considered subhuman, and hence undeserving
of any humanity. When Germany occupied Poland and parts of
Russia, captured civilians were forced to work as slave labour. Many
of them died simply through hard work and starvation.
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
Under the shadow of war, the Nazis proceeded to realise their
murderous, racial ideal. Genocide and war became two sides of the
same coin. Occupied Poland was divided up. Much of north-western
Poland was annexed to Germany. Poles were forced to leave their
homes and properties behind to be occupied by ethnic Germans
brought in from occupied Europe. Poles were then herded like cattle in the
other part called the General Government, the
destination of all ‘undesirables’ of the empire. Members of the Polish
intelligentsia were murdered in large numbers in order to keep the
entire people intellectually and spiritually servile. Polish children
who looked like Aryans were forcibly snatched from their mothers
and examined by ‘race experts’. If they passed the race tests they
were raised in German families and if not, they were deposited in
orphanages where most perished. With some of the largest ghettos
and gas chambers, the General Government also served as the killing
fields for the Jews
PICTURES
YOUTH IN NAZI GERMANY
 Teachers who were Jews or seen as ‘politically unreliable’ were
dismissed. Children were first segregated: Germans and Jews could
not sit together or play together.
 Subsequently, ‘undesirable children’ – Jews, the physically
handicapped, Gypsies – were thrown out of schools. And finally in the
1940s, they were taken to the gas chambers.
 ‘Good German’ children were subjected to a process of Nazi
schooling,
a prolonged period of ideological training. School textbooks were
rewritten. Racial science was introduced to justify Nazi ideas of race.
 Stereotypes about Jews were popularised even through maths classes.
 Children were taught to be loyal and submissive, hate Jews, and
worship Hitler.
 ‘Good German’ children were subjected to a process of Nazi
schooling, a prolonged period of ideological training. School
textbooks were rewritten. Racial science was introduced to justify
Nazi ideas of race.
 Stereotypes about Jews were popularised even through maths
classes.
 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 – where they learnt to worship
war, glorify aggression and violence, condemn democracy, and hate
Jews, communists, Gypsies and all those categorised as ‘undesirable’.
 After a period of rigorous ideological and physical training they joined
the Labour Service, usually at the age of 18.
 Then they had to serve in the armed forces and enter one of the Nazi
organisations.

Source C Source D
All boys between the ages of six and ten went Robert Lay, head of the German
through a preliminary training in Nazi ideology. At Labour Front, said:
the end of the training they had to take the ‘We start when the child is three
following oath of loyalty to Hitler: years old. As soon as he even starts to
‘In the presence of this blood banner which think, he is given a little flag to wave.
represents our Fuhrer I swear to devote all my Then comes school, the Hitler Youth,
energies and my strength to the saviour of our military service. But when all this is
country, Adolf Hitler. I am willing and ready to give over, we don’t let go of anyone. The
up my life for him, so help me God.’ labour front takes hold of them, and
From W. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third keeps hold until they go to the grave,
THE NAZI CULT OF MOTHERHOOD
 While boys were taught to be aggressive, masculine and steel hearted, girls were told that
they had 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 the home, and teach their
children Nazi values. They had to be the bearers of the Aryan culture and race.
 Women who bore racially undesirable children were punished and those who produced
racially desirable children were awarded.
 They were given favoured treatment in hospitals and were also entitled to concessions in
shops and on theatre tickets and railway fares. To encourage women to produce many
children, Honour Crosses were awarded. A bronze cross was given for four children, silver for
six and gold for eight or more.

 All ‘Aryan’ women who deviated from the prescribed code of conduct were publicly
condemned, and severely punished. Those 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’. Many
received jail sentences and lost civic honour as well as their husbands and families for this
criminal offence.
 THE ART OF PROPAGANDA
 The Nazi regime used language and media with care, and often to
great effect. The terms they coined to describe their various
practices are not only deceptive. They are chilling. Nazis never
used the words ‘kill’ or ‘murder’ in their official communications.
Mass killings were termed special treatment, final solution (for the
Jews), euthanasia (for the disabled), selection and disinfections.
‘Evacuation ’meant deporting people to gas chambers. The gas
chambers were labelled ‘disinfection-areas’ ,and looked like bathrooms
equipped with fake showerheads.

Source E
In an address to women at the Nuremberg Party Rally, 8 September 1934, Hitler said:
We do not consider it correct for the woman to interfere in the world of the man, in his main sphere.
We consider it natural that these two worlds remain distinct…What the man gives in courage on the
battlefield, the woman gives in eternal self-sacrifice, in eternal pain and suffering. Every child that
women bring to the world is a battle, a battle waged for the existence of her people.
 ORDINARY PEOPLE AND THE CRIMES
AGAINST HUMANITY
 Many felt hatred and anger surge inside them when they saw someone who looked like a Jew. They marked
the houses of Jews and reported suspicious neighbours. They genuinely believed Nazism would bring
prosperity and improve general well-being.
 But not every German was a Nazi.

 Pastor Niemoeller, a resistance fighter, observed an

absence of protest, an uncanny silence, amongst ordinary Germans

in the face of brutal and organised crimes committed against people
in the Nazi empire. He wrote movingly about this silence:
‘First they came for the Communists,
Well, I was not a Communist –
So I said nothing.
Then they came for the Social Democrats,
Well, I was not a Social Democrat
So I did nothing,
Then they came for the trade unionists,
But I was not a trade unionist.
And then they came for the Jews,
But I was not a Jew – so I did little.
Then when they came for me,
There was no one left who could stand up for me.’
 HOLOCAUST

Knowledge about the Holocaust

 Information about Nazi practices had trickled out of Germany during the
last years of the regime. But it was only after the war ended and Germany
was defeated that the world came to realise the horrors of what had
happened.
 While the Germans were preoccupied with their own plight as a defeated
nation emerging out of the rubble, the Jews wanted the world to remember
the atrocities and sufferings.
 Yet the history and the memory of the Holocaust live on in memoirs,
fiction, documentaries, poetry, memorials and museums in many parts of
the world today. These are a tribute to those who resisted it, an
embarrassing reminder to those who collaborated, and a warning to those
who watched in silence.
CONCENTRATION CAMPS
 Denmark secretly rescued their
Jews from Germany. This is one of
the boats used for the purpose.

Inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto

collected documents and placed them in
three milk cans along with other
containers. As destruction seemed
imminent, these containers were buried
in the cellars of buildings in 1943.
This can was discovered in 1950.