Transcript FSU Holocaust lecture

HITLER AND THE PEOPLE
The Public Sides of Nazi Terror
The Gestapo and German Society
The Varieties of Dictatorship
Changing perspectives
 Hitler: “The first foundation for the
creation of authority is always provided by
popularity.”
 “The second foundation of all authority is
force.”
 The result: “Consensus Dictatorship”

Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion
in Nazi Germany
Post World War I Europe

Militarization of political life

The era of “uniformed bullies”

The call for the “Strong Man”

The crisis of democracy and capitalism
Unemployment rose to nearly 40% at
the end of 1932
Hitler is Appointed
Make-Work Projects:
Building the Autobahn

It began before Hitler

One of Hitler’s make-work projects

The Great Depression had psychological causes

The autobahn – a small part of the psychological
cure
Make Work Programs

Postcards of
dedicated young
women and men
“Self-Coordination”: Millions embrace
the National Socialist Movement
Unemployment sinks Hitler’s
Popularity Rises
Arbeitslose 1933 - 1939
Saarland votes freely to return to
Germany

January 13, 1935 free plebiscite

Supervised by League of Nations

90.7% in favor

Big boost for Hitler
The Step Across the Rhine:
March 17, 1936
Cheering Crowds on Hitler’s Return
from Vienna after its incorporation in
March 1938
The “Legal Revolution”

Elimination of political opposition

Begins with the Communists

One institution at a time
The Communist Militants fought it
out in the streets with the SA
Announcement of the Dachau KZ in
the Press
400,000 Sterilized: Enormous
Publicity of the Program
Sterilization Laws
“Law and Order”

Crackdown on “Habitual Criminals” (1933)

Criminal police (Kripo)

New Powers for Courts

“Secure and improve”
Women Recall the “Good Times” the
Third Reich:
“I only wanted to see the good”
Images of the KZ in Word and Picture
The Distribution of the Camps in
1933
The number of camp prisoners falls
to 3,000 at the end of 1934

The “end of the camps is in sight”
The Changing Missions of KZ are
reported in the Press
Hitler as the prince who awakens
“sleeping beauty” with a KZ in
Emsland
Emsland Camps, 1938-9
KZ-GEDENKSTÄTTE
FLOSSENBÜRG
FLOSSENBÜRG
“Satellite Camps
Einige Orte in denen größere (manchmal auch mehrere) Außenlager des KZ Flossenbürg bestanden.
Altenhammer
Ansbach
Aue
Bayreuth
Brüx/Most
Chemnitz
Dresden
Eichstätt
Eisenberg/Jezeri
Falkenau a.d Eger/Falknov nad Ohri
Flöha
Freiberg
Ganacker
Giebelstadt
Grafenreuth
Graslitz/Kraslice
Gröditz
Gundelsdorf
Hainichen
Heidenau
Helmsbrechts
Hersbruck
Hertine/Rtyne
Hohenstein-Ernstthal
Holleischen/Holysov
Hradischko/Hradistko
Janowitz/Vrchotovy Janovice
Johanngeorgenstadt
Jungfern Breschan/Panenske Brezany
Kirchham
Knellendorf
Königstein
Krondorf/Korunni
Leitmeritz/Litomerice
Lengenfeld
Lobositz/Lovosice
Mehlteuer
Meissen
Mittweida
FLOSSENBÜRG
“Satellite Camps” (2)
Mockethal-Zatschke
Moschendorf
Mülsen-St. Micheln
Neu Rohlau/Nova Role
Nossen
Nürnberg
Obertraubling
Oederan
Plattling
Plauen
Porschdorf
Poschetzau/Bozicany
Pottenstein
Rabstein/Rabstejn
Regensburg
Rochlitz
Saal a.d.Donau
St. Georgenthal/Jiretin
Schlackenwerth/Ostrov
Schönheide
Seifhennersdorf
Siegmar-Schönau
Stein-Schönau/Kamenicky Senov
Stulln
Venusberg
Willischthal
Wolkenburg
Würzburg
Zschachwitz
Zschopau
Zwickau
Zwodau/Svatava
FLOSSENBÜRG

More than 30,000 people died in the camp
or its satellite camps

Almost all non-Jews

Its full history remains to be written
Jewish Populations in Europe in 1933
Jews in Germany

1933 = 499,682 “believing Jews” in Germany

Less than 1% of the total population

End 1939 = 190,000

Around 20,000 of these people lived in “mixed
marriages”
Victor Klemperer

What do the Germans
really think about the
Jews?

What do they know about
the persecutions?

How does “the system”
really work?
Goebbels’ Call for a Boycott of the
Jews in 1933
Local Nazi radicals and the Boycott of
the Jews
Kristallnacht across Germany
November 9/10, 1938
Kristallnacht
100 or more are killed
 Synagogues Burnt
 7500 Businesses
 People Attacked
 Senseless waste everywhere
 30,000 sent to KZ

Male Jews March off to camps:
They are released to Emigrate
Images of Wűrzburg
Wűrzburg (2)
The old and beautiful places
Wűrzburg changes in 1933
Oral History and the Secret Police

Limits and possibilities

Alternatives sources: diaries and letters

Police files from the time

What is the question?
Denunciations: a new field of
research

Denunciations: Volunteered Informing
from “ordinary citizens”

Who are “ordinary citizens”?

Are they a key to Understanding the
Gestapo?
Gestapo Files
19,000 files in
Wűrzburg
 How do the police
find out?
 How many police are
there?

Citizen Participation in Policing
“The War Revolutionizes the
Revolution”

Militarization of social life

Appearance of slave labor

“Apartheid System” & Master Race

Policing the “apartheid system”
Consensus Dictatorship:
Hitler greets a Berlin Crowd (July
1940)
Slave workers
End 1944 = 7,487.000 employed
inside Germany
What was known about the Mass
Murder of the Jews? The Hitler
Prophesy
Propaganda poster
September 1941

Euthanasia Poster: How much a
chronically ill person costs the
community

Hitler “Authorization” backdated to
September 1, 1939
Publicity of Deportations
Aryanization of Property
Humiliation of the Jews in “Mixed
Marriages” who stay in Germany
Growth of the camps in the war
KZ Prisoners
1934 =3,000
1944 = 714,211
Special New “Work Education Camps”
200 camps with a capacity of 40,000
Social Presence of the KZ 1933-45
Approaching Defeat “Revolutionizes
the Revolution” Again

Home Front becomes the Battlefront

Drum-Head courts

Military system of “justice”

“Volkssturm” or “Peoples’ Army”

Death Marches of KZ and all prisons
German Military Justice Executed
more than 15,000 of its own troops
Evacuation of the Camps and
Prisons: the Death Marches
Death Marches

What to do with the 700,000 camp
inmates?

More than 250,000 people of all
nationalities died in these “evacuations”

We are still searching for an explanation
The last camp census
Backing Hitler to the End:
“The Consensus Holds”