Transcript The Rise of Hitler

*voting rights for women
Weimar Republic
*Problems:
•no outstanding political
leaders
•serious economic
problems
•GD – rise in
unemployment
•rise of extremist parties
(Nazi Partry)
*parliamentary regimes
*growth of individual liberties
•After war, strongest power
on continent
1932 -1933 = political chaos
(6 different cabinets)
•Popular Front gov’t formed:
Communists, Socialists,
Radicals
•rise in unemployment
•GD
•decreased industrial production
•high unemployment
•FDR – 1932 President
•New Deal = policy of active
government intervention
public works programs (WPA)
Social Security Act
reforms
•Government
controls:
•Features of
totalitarian states
(use of police
powers)
 political
economic
•Preserve existing
social order
social
intellectual
Cultural
•Led by single
leader/single party
•state > individual
•emphasizes need
for strong central
gov’t led by
dictatorial ruler
Pair - Share
What are the features of a
totalitarian government?
What are some examples of
how a dictator takes total
control of society?
Economic problems after WWI:
•inflation
•worker strikes
•middle class fears Communist takeover
= widespread unrest
Benito Mussolini
•established 1st fascist
movement in Italy
•“Blackshirts” (broke up
strikes)
•created Fascist dictatorship:
censored media /
spread propaganda
(“Mussolini is always
right”)
•attractive to middle class
police given
unrestricted authority
•appealed patriotism &
nationalism
outlawed all other
political parties
•became prime minister
created secret police
(OVRA)
•ruled as “Il Duce” the
leader
•death of Lenin leads to struggle for
power
•end NEP
New Economic Policy
(NEP)
•modified capitalist
system
•industry, banking, and
mines controlled by gov’t
•Saved USSR from
economic disaster
•rapid
industrialization
of USSR
•worldwide
communist
revolution
•build socialist
state in Russia
•continue NEP
poor living conditions for workers
decline in wages
propaganda stresses need to sacrifice to
create new socialist state
Collectivization = gov’t owns all land
•Set economic goals
for 5 year periods
•Goal = to transform
Russia into industrial
country overnight
•Collectivization => FAMINE (10 million)
•1st plan: maximum
production of goods
& Weapons
•Great Purge of 1930s:
•Resisters to Stalin’s programs => TO SIBERIA!
 Old Bolsheviks executed
8 million Russians arrested (to Siberia or
executed)
overturned social reforms
Background

Vienna, Austria –
rejected by
Academy of Fine
Arts; spent
several years
there, virtually
homeless
=>develops his
ideas here,
particularly
racist views
against Jews

World War I –
served as a
trench runner for
German army,
received Iron
Cross first class
The Rise of Hitler
 National Socialist
German Workers’
Party => grows to
55,000 ppl by 1923
Beer Hall Putsch
 staged
armed
uprising
against
gov’t in
Munich;
FAILED =>
sent to
prison for
treason
 written in prison
 outlined Hitler’s
beliefs & plan
 combination of
German
nationalism,
anti-Semitism,
anticommunism
 Social
Darwinism =>
stronger nations
had right to
Lebensraum/
superior leaders
should rule
masses
Mein Kampf
Excerpts from Mein Kampf
[This excerpt is the first section of Vol. 1, Chapter 11: Nation and Race]
THERE are some truths which are so obvious that for this very reason they are not
seen or at least not recognized by ordinary people. They sometimes pass by such
truisms as though blind and are most astonished when someone suddenly discovers
what everyone really ought to know. Columbus's eggs lie around by the hundreds of
thousands, but Columbuses are met with less frequently.
Thus men without exception wander about in the garden of Nature; they imagine
that they know practically everything and yet with few exceptions pass blindly by
one of the most patent principles of Nature's rule: the inner segregation of the
species of all living beings on this earth.
Even the most superficial observation shows that Nature's restricted form of
propagation and increase is an almost rigid basic law of all the innumerable forms of
expression of her vital urge. Every animal mates only with a member of the same
species. The titmouse seeks the titmouse, the finch the finch, the stork the stork, the
field mouse the field mouse, thedormouse the dormouse, the wolf the she-wolf, etc.
Excerpts from Mein Kampf
[This excerpt is the first section of Vol. 1, Chapter 11: Nation and Race]
Historical experience offers countless proofs of this. It shows with terrifying clarity
that in every mingling of Aryan blood with that of lower peoples the result was the
end of the cultured people. North America, whose population consists in by far the
largest part of Germanic elements who mixed but little with the lower colored
peoples, shows a different humanity and culture from Central and South America,
where the predominantly Latin immigrants often mixed with the aborigines on a
large scale. By this one example, we can clearly and distinctly recognize the effect
of racial mixture. The Germanic inhabitant of the American continent, who has
remained racially pure and unmixed, rose to be master of the continent; he will
remain the master as long as he does not fall a victim to defilement of the blood.
The result of all racial crossing is therefore in brief always the following:
* Lowering of the level of the higher race;
* Physical and intellectual regression and hence the beginning of a slowly but surely
progressing sickness.
To bring about such a development is, then, nothing else but to sin against the will of
the eternal creator. And as a sin this act is rewarded.
Mein Kampf: Fighting for racial
purity
He who wants to live must fight, and he who does
not want to fight in this world of perpetual
struggle does not deserve to live!
All great cultures of the past perished only
because the originally creative race died out
from blood poisoning.
The world does not exist for cowardly nations.
The Rise of Hitler
 after release
from prison,
Hitler
expanded party
to all parts of
Germany
 Nazis b/c
largest party in
Reichstag
(800,000)
 Causes:
economic
problems =>
extremist
parties more
attractive;
appealed to
nationalism /
militarism
Mein Kampf : War against Jews
The trend of development which we are now experiencing would, if allowed to go on
unhampered, lead to the realization of the Pan-Jewish prophecy that the Jews will one
day devour the other nations and become lords of the earth.
In contrast to the millions of "bourgeois" and "proletarian" Germans, who are
stumbling to their ruin, mostly through timidity, indolence and stupidity, the Jew
pursues his way persistently and keeps his eye always fixed on his future goal. Any
party that is led by him can fight for no other interests than his, and his interests
certainly have nothing in common with those of the Aryan nations.
If we would transform our ideal picture of the People's State into a reality we shall have
to keep independent of the forces that now control public life and seek for new forces
that will be ready and capable of taking up the fight for such an ideal. For a fight it
will have to be, since the first objective will not be to build up the idea of the People's
State but rather to wipe out the Jewish State which is now in existence. As so often
happens in the course of history, the main difficulty is not to establish a new order of
things but to clear the ground for its establishment. Prejudices and egotistic interests
join together in forming a common front against the new idea and in trying by every
means to prevent its triumph, because it is disagreeable to them or threatens their
existence.
That is why the protagonist of the new idea is unfortunately, in spite of his desire for
constructive work, compelled to wage a destructive battle first, in order to abolish the
existing state of affairs....
 Hitler named
chancellor (1933)
 Enabling Act: gave
gov’t power to ignore
constitution for 4 years
to deal with country’s
problems = Hitler b/c
dictator
 Nazis establish control
over all institutions of
gov’t:
 civil service purged
 concentration
camps (all Nazi
opponents)
 abolished
presidency
 Hitler leads as Der
Fuhrer (leader)
Hitler Elected
The Third Reich (1933-1939)
 Aryan state
 To control the country, used:
 Terror & Ideology: Schutzstaffeln (SS), Himmler –
repression & murder to further the Aryan race
 Economic policies: public works/grants & massive
rearmament program = drop in unemployment, help end
depression in G
 Spectacles/organizations: Nuremburg party rallies
 Women: meant to be wives & mothers, discouraged from
working
 Anti-Semitic Policies: Nuremberg laws = excluded Jews
from German citizenship / banned intermarriage btwn
Jews & Germans;
 Kristallnacht (1938) = Jewish businesses destroyed,
Jews encouraged to emigrate from Germany