Nazism and the Rise of Hitler: An Introduction
* Adolf Hitler was the leader of Germany from 1933 to 1945.
* During Hitler’s government Germany was called Nazi Germany.
* Nazi Germany followed a philosophy called Nazism, which promoted violent practices to restore German pride.
* In 1939 Hitler attacked Poland to conquer more land for Germany.
* This invasion of Poland sparked off world war two.
* During world war two, countries divided themselves into two groups.
* These groups were named the Allied Powers and the Axis Powers.
* In the end the Allied Powers won and the Axis Powers, especially Germany, were prosecuted by a Tribunal set up in the German city of Nuremberg.
* At the Nuremberg Trials Hitler and his Nazi government were accused of committing genocide against Jews.
* Hitler was not tried at Nuremberg because he committed suicide just because world war two ended.
Living in the Weimar Republic
* The Weimar Republic was established in 1919, replaced the imperial government and formed a parliament called the Reichstag.
* The Weimar signed the peace treaty of Versailles which made things very difficult for them and struggled to meet the terms.
* Socialists, Catholics and Democrats who supported the republic were ridiculed and called the November criminals.
* There was infighting began between different political groups, the most popular being the Spartacist League.
* The Weimar Republic faced an economic crisis in 1923 and to combat this crisis they printed extra notes that led to hyperinflation.
* The world had entered the Great Depression in 1929 and Germany was badly hit because of its financial dependence on America.
* In 1933, the Weimar Republic finally collapsed paving the way for Hitler’s Nazi Party to take control of Germany.
No Right to Live
* Hitler wanted to brainwash children with Nazi ideology early on so that they could continue to create a stronger Germany.
* He set up training programmes for boys at three levels.
* Girls were encouraged to stop working and studying and asked to manage their home and give birth to pure Aryan children.
* The Motherhood Cross was awarded to the woman who had the most children each year.
* Influenced by Hitler’s hypnotic rhetoric, Germans genuinely participated in all the Nazi programmes.
* Those that revolted or failed were expelled or exterminated.
Hitler Rises to Power
* Hitler was of Austrian origins and wanted to be a painter but instead ended up joining the German army, where he won medals for his bravery in World War I.
* In 1921 he joined and took over the Nazi party, which echoed his strong antisemitic views and was also against the Weimar Republic.
* Hitler promised hope and delivered it through charismatic speeches at elaborate rallies.
* By the 1932 Reichstag elections, the Nazi party got 37 percent votes.
* In January 1933 he was appointed the Chancellor of Germany.
Destruction of Democracy and Reconstruction
* As soon as Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, he passed the Reichstag Fire Decree, the Enabling Act, appointed special security forces, built concentration camps and dissolved the position of the President making him the sole leader of Germany.
* Communists that opposed him were all forcibly imprisoned in the camp and made to work for free for the government.
* Hitler and his minister of economics Hjalmar Schacht, focused on strengthening the German economy by building Autobahns and Volkswagens for the common worker.
* In a bid to extend the German empire, Hitler conquered Austrian and Czechoslovakia but when he invaded Poland, he angered the French and sparked off World War Two.
* Initially, Germany was winning the war but after its attack on the Soviet Union it was defeated.
* The Government of India and Andhra Pradesh have set up several offices and laboratories in different parts of the state.
* Japan bombed the US naval base at Pearl Harbour and paid heavily for that when the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
* Hitler’s determination to review the German economy was ultimately based on anti-democratic go-to-war ideologies.
Nazi Policies and Practices
* Hitler was voted to power based on his ideology called Nazism.
* Nazism promised to restore economic prosperity, global leadership and German pride.
* Influenced by Darwin and Spencer, Hitler believed that people existed in a racial hierarchy and that pure Nordic Aryans ere the purest race.
* He decided to eliminate all non- Aryans from Germany and create a pure German racial state, one of the biggest groups he targeted were the Jews.
* Synagogues were burnt Jewish stores were broken into, Jews were killed and arrested. Many were arrested and thrown into concentration camps where they were tortured and killed.
* This period of Nazi genocide against the Jews is referred to as the Holocaust.
Nazi Propaganda
* The Nazi government influenced public opinion in Germany by giving powerful speeches, printing daily newspapers, designing comic books and filming racist movies.
* The theme of all Nazi propaganda was anti-semitism and German pride.
* In his book Mein Kampf, Hitler outlined in detail how propaganda should be worded, and Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels systematically bombarded the German public with Hitler’s messages.
Reacting to the Holocaust
* There were four groups, the perpetrators, the victims, the opposition and the bystanders.
* The perpetrators were Nazi Germany who brutally persecuted the Jews, however there were many Germans who didn’t support Hitler and there were many others who quietly stood by and watched.
* European Jews were the victims and their written records of how they suffered under Nazi leadership are now kept in museums across the world.
* The Allied Powers who opposed Hitler reoccupied Germany when they won World War Two and built many memorials to mourn the 6 million Jews that had been killed.