Transcript 13a Totalitarianism

END OF WEIMAR REPUBLIC
November 1918: Military defeat of Imperial
Germany, revolution breaks out.
1919: New German government forced to sign
Versailles Treaty. Few Germans accept the new
"German Republic", despite a constitution which
promises all citizens equal rights and social welfare
1926: Germany becomes member of League of
Nations.
1920s: Berlin is a major center of art and science in
Europe. National Socialists are gaining support and
prestige.
1930s: Depression. In 1932, six million unemployed
in Germany. Inefficient government because of
unstable coalitions.
1932: Chancellor Franz von Papen drives
democratic government of Prussia (largest state)
out of office, no resistance.
1933: President Hindenburg appoints Hitler
Chancellor. At first, Hitler's opponents do not see
through the pseudolegality of the "seizure of
power". By the time they realize that the National
Socialist government is pursuing the permanent
destruction of the republic, Hitler has already
obtained the decisive instruments of power for
establishing a dictatorship.
Demonstration in Berlin, 1930. The Reichsbanner, an
organization independent of political parties,
continually calls on citizens to demonstrate for the
Republic. Its membership in the 1920s included about
three million members from every party of the Weimar
Coalition loyal to the Republic, particularly from the
ranks of the Social Democrats and labor unions.
RISE OF HITLER AND NAZI PARTY
1889: Hitler born in Austria-Hungary.
In late teens: Anti-semitic influences
of Vienna mayor Karl Lueger and
Aryan theories of former monk Lanz
von Liebenfels
1921: Infiltrated a small nationalist
party called German Workers’ Party.
Reorganized and renamed it to
National Socialist German Workers’
Party (NSDAP, Nazi for short).
Newspaper, SA (Storm Troops), mass
movement.
Storm Troops:
1923: up from a few hundred to 70K.
1929: 178,000
1932: 500,000
1923: Failed coup. Hitler spent 5
years in prison, wrote Mein Kampf.
1929: By now, Nazi party had
nationwide organization
September 1930: Nazis had 18% seats
in parliament of Weimar Rep.
1932: Nazi party membership was more
than 800,000. Hitler pioneered election
campaigning by covering 50 cities in 15
days. Nazis didn’t get absolute majority
in 1932 election but , became largest
voting bloc in parliament.
Mein Kampf
The mightiest counterpart to the Aryan is represented by
the Jew…Today he passes as 'smart,' and this in a certain
sense he has been at all times. But his intelligence is not
the result of his own development … For what sham
culture the Jew today possesses is the property of other
peoples, and for the most part it is ruined in his hands …
there has never been a Jewish art … above all the two
queens of all the arts, architecture and music, owe
nothing original to the Jews … the Jew lacks those
qualities which distinguish the races that are creative and
hence culturally blessed.
The Jew has always been a people with definite racial
characteristics and never a religion; only in order to get
ahead he early sought for a means which could distract
unpleasant attention from his person. And what would
have been more expedient and at the same time more
innocent than the 'embezzled' concept of a religious
community? For here, too, everything is borrowed or
rather stolen.
NAZI RULE
1933: Hitler appointed Chancellor, Enabling Act gave him authority to disregard
parliament and constitution. No opposition except from Social Democrats.
Gleichshaltung (Nazification): Police force, civil services, labor unions,
concentration camps for enemies of regime, exclusion of Jews from public office
and gradually from public life, federal autonomy scrapped, all parties abolished.
All by end of 1933.
1934: Hitler abolished presidency. Plebiscite showed 85% of Germans
approved of the new order.
1935: Race-based citizenship laws. Open defiance of Versailles treaty
(rearmament, remilitarization of Rhineland, agreement with Britain to rebuild
navy, reintroduction of draft
1938: Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass); encouraging Jewish emigration;
Madagascar Plan.
Nazi diplomacy: 1935 pact with Britain, 1936 Rome-Berlin Axis (Mussolini),
1936 alliance with Japan, 1936 support of Gen. Franco of Spain.
Nazi ideology: The master race, motherhood, the Volk, Lebensraum,
Gleichshaltung, propaganda, hatred of Bolshevism (plan to expand eastwards)
GROWING PROPAGANDA
Wolfgang Willrich
1932
NAZI PROPAGANDA AGAINST THE DISABLED
This frame from a filmstrip shows that the money needed to support a person with a
hereditary disease can support an entire family of healthy Germans for the same
amount of time.
KRISTALLNACHT, NOVEMBER 9, 1938
Left: A Jewish-owned store in Berlin. November 10, 1938. Right: Jews arrested during
Kristallnacht line up for roll call at the Buchenwald concentration camp. November 1938.
THE HOLOCAUST
1938-39: Nazis encouraged emigration of Jews.
Sept 1939: World War 2 began as Britain and France declared war on
Germany. The Nazis needed a more “efficient” policy to get rid of the Jews.
1941: Einsatzgruppen or firing squads of the SS (a Nazi paramilitary that
took over the job of the SA, and of which the Gestapo or secret police was a
part) deployed to round up Jews in ghettos and villages and bury them in
mass graves. The Einsatzgruppen had morale problems because of
constant face-to-face killing, although they did kill an estimated 1 million
Jews.
1942-45: The Allies were gaining ground in 1942, and even swifter “solution”
to the Jewish problem became necessary. Now Jews from Germany and
countries occupied by it were shipped off by train to death camps. The
railways gave this priority over even shipping military supplies in the thick of
war.
Death toll by the end of WW2:
5-6 million Jews
400,000 Roma or Gypsies (40% of Europe’s Gypsy population)
4 million eastern Europeans used as slave labor
3-4 million Soviet prisoners of war killed in captivity
Left: A chart of signs to distinguish different
inmates of concentration camps. Signs were
sewn or attached to prisoners’ clothes.
Above: A boy shows his identification tattoo.
When the number of deaths rose, some camps
started tattooing identification numbers on sick
and old prisoners, so they could be identified
regardless of clothes.
MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS
Above: A victim of Nazi
medical experiments,
Buchenwald.
Below: Dr. Josef
Mengele, the physician in
charge of experiments.
A victim of a Nazi medical experiment is
immersed in icy water at the Dachau
concentration camp. SS doctor Sigmund
Rascher oversees the experiment. Germany,
1942
A prisoner in a
compression chamber
loses consciousness
(and later dies) during
an experiment to
determine altitudes at
which aircraft crews
could survive without
oxygen. Dachau,
Germany, 1942.
Martin Niemöller, pastor
(January 14, 1892 - March 6, 1984)
"When the Nazis took away the
Communists, I was silent;
I wasn't a Communist.
When they locked up the Social
Democrats, I was silent;
I wasn't a Social Democrat.
When they took away the labor
unionists, I was silent;
I wasn't a labor unionist.
When they took away the Jews,
I was silent;
I wasn't a Jew.
When they took me away, there
was no one left to protest."
THE “BANALITY OF EVIL”
Hannah Arendt
Adolf Eichmann
Evil occurs not because of the presence of hatred, but because of the absence of
those imaginative capacities that can make the human and moral aspects of our
activities clear to us. Eichmann failed to exercise his capacity of thinking, which
would have permitted self-awareness.
Thinking is different from knowing. Thinking persistently makes us ask questions
that cannot be answered from the standpoint of knowledge, questions we cannot
refrain from asking. Thinking does not yield positive results that can be considered
settled; rather, it constantly returns to question again and again the meaning that
we give to experiences, actions and circumstances.
Adapted from Majid Yar (2001), http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/a/arendt.htm
MUSSOLINI AND FASCISM
1912: Mussolini expelled from Socialist party
1919: Established Fascio de Combattimento
(League of Combat).
1921: Fascists 7% of parliament. Use of
violence (200,000 Squadristi)
1922: Mussolini became prime minister
By 1926: Press censorship; rule by decree;
OVRA (secret police); role of women; use of
youth organizations, mass media and education
for propaganda
Limitations of fascism: armed forces,
peasantry, monarchy, church
Militarism: attacks in SE Europe (Corfu,
Albania), tighter control over Libya (Italian
colony since 1911), 1935 attack on Ethiopia,
1936 pact with Hitler
Edition dated July 22, 1946
Edition dated September 6, 1937
TOTALITARIANISM UNDER STALIN, HITLER, MUSSOLINI
Origins:
• War economy
• Industrial society
• Economic hardship
Characteristics:
• One leader overriding constitution, parliament, or opposition
• Use of terror and espionage against citizens
• Active loyalty from citizens
• Extreme patriotism
• Use of propaganda
• Affirmation of social inequality (gender and race)