Nazism

- After the first world war and abdication by emperor, 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.
- In the treaty of Versailles, the War Guilt Clause held Germany responsible for the
war. The Allied armies also occupied the resource-rich Rhineland.
- 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’.
- The birth of the Weimar Republic 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.
- In 1923 Germany refused to pay loans, and the French occupied its leading industrial
area, Ruhr, to claim their coal.
- The Americans intervened and bailed Germany out of the hyperinflation crisis by
introducing the Dawes Plan.
- 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.
- In 1919, Hitler joined a small group called the German Workers’ Party. He
subsequently took over the organisation and renamed it the National Socialist
German Workers’ Party(Nazi)
- In 1923, Hitler planned to seize control of Bavaria, march to Berlin and capture
power. He failed, was arrested, tried for treason, and later released.
- 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 during the great
depression.
- On 30 January 1933, President Hindenburg offered the Chancellorship, the highest
position in the cabinet of ministers, to Hitler
- 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
- 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
- Apart from the already existing regular police in 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).
- Hitler assigned the responsibility of economic recovery to the economist Hjalmar
Schacht who aimed at full production and full employment through a state-funded
work-creation programme(famous german superhighways and people’s car
Volkswagen)
- He pulled out of 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 went on to wrest Germanspeaking Sudentenland from Czechoslovakia, and
gobbled up the entire country
- In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. This started a war with France and
England. In September 1940, a Tripartite Pact was signed between Germany, Italy
and Japan, strengthening Hitler’s claim to international power.
- He attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941. In this historic blunder Hitler exposed the
German western front to British aerial bombing and the eastern front to the
powerful Soviet armies
- When Japan extended its support to Hitler and bombed the US base at Pearl Harbor,
the US entered the Second World War.
- 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.
- 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
- Blue-eyed, Nordic German Aryans were at the top, while Jews were located at the
lowest rung.
- Darwin was a natural scientist who tried to explain the creation of plants and animals
through the concept of evolution and natural selection. Herbert Spencer later added
the idea of survival of the fittest. Hitler used this for propaganda.
- Lebensraum, or living space. He believed that new territories had to be acquired for
settlement.
- Under the Euthanasia Programme, Nazi officials had condemned to death many
Germans who were considered mentally or physically unfit.
- Jews had been stereotyped as killers of Christ and usurers
- Poles were herded like cattle in the part called the General Government.
- Ten-year-old germans 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. 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.
- The Youth League of the Nazis was founded in 1922. Four years later it was renamed
Hitler Youth
- 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.
- 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 most infamous film was The Eternal Jew. Orthodox Jews were stereotyped and
marked.
- Pastor Niemoeller, a resistance fighter, observed an absence of protest, an uncanny
silence, amongst ordinary Germans.
- Charlotte Beradt secretly recorded people’s dreams in her diary and later published
them in a highly disconcerting book called the Third Reich of Dreams
- Nazi killing operations – also called the Holocaust