SGQ10, December 3, 2009

MWH 309-318

1. What did National Socialism stand for? It did not refer to a redistribution of wealth or nationalization, but it was meant to attract the support of German workers.

A. What were the movements four general principles?

i. It was a way of life dedicated to the rebirth of the nation. All classes in society must be united into a 'national community' to make Germany a great nation and to have national pride restored. To do this, all other political parties, especially the communists, must be eliminated.

ii. Great emphasis was placed on the ruthlessly efficient organization of the lives of the masses under the central government in order to achieve greatness, even with violence and terror if necessary. The interests of the state came first, and Germany was to be a totalitarian state.

iii. The entire state must be organized on a military footing.

iv. The race theory. The ideal person was believed to be Aryan, or German; blond, blue eyed, handsome, and these people were considered the master race who were destined to rule the world. All other people including Slavs, colored people, and Jews were inferior and unfit to belong, and would be excluded from the 'national community' along with gypsies and homosexuals, who were also believed to be inferior. The Slavs were destined to become the slave race of the Germans.

B. What evidence suggests Nazism was a "natural development of German history"?

i. It was a natural extension of earlier Prussian militarism and German traditions.

ii. Marxist historians believed that National Socialism and fascism in general were the final stage of western capitalism, which they felt was bound to collapse due to fatal flaws.

C . What evidence suggests Nazism was a "distortion of normal development" of German history?

German historians stressed the personal contribution of Hitler, stating that Hitler was striving to break away from the past and introduce something completely new. They believed National Socialism was a grotesque departure from the normal and logical historical development. This point of view absolves the German people from most of the blame.

D . What evidence suggests Nazism was a bit of both?

Most of the elements of political culture that fed into Nazism were peculiarly German. Hitler exploited these conditions which is what contributed to his rise to power and what happened after. The conditions that made Hitler's rise possible were plainly recognizable in the 20 years or so before WWI.

2. How did Hitler consolidate his power?

A. Actions leading up to the March election of 1933

i. Nazis were able to use all the apparatus of state in order to influence the elections.

ii. Senior police officers were replaced with reliable Nazis and 50,000 auxiliary policemen were called up.

iii. These police officers showed no mercy to communists and other 'enemies of the state' and meetings of all parties except Nazis were wrecked and speakers were beaten up.

B. The Reichstag fire

i. What happened?

The Reichstag building was badly damaged by a fire started by the young Dutch anarchist called van der Lubbe, who was arrested, tried, and executed. It was believed that the SA knew of this plan, and allowed van der Lubbe to go ahead and burn down the Reichstag so it could be blamed on the communists, who would then be punished.

ii. what did it mean?
Hitler used the fire to stir up fear of communism and as a pretext for the banning of the party. This meant that the communists could not participate in the election and as a result, the Nazis won more support in the election, although not an overall majority.

3. How was Hitler able to stay in power?

A. What was the Enabling Law? The Enabling Law stated that the government could introduce laws without the approval of the Reichstag for the next four years, could ignore the constitution and could sign agreements with foreign countries. All laws would be drafted by the Chancellor and come into operation the day they were published. This meant that Hitler would be the complete dictator for the next four years, or however long he wanted since he was now in complete control.

B. How did the Enabling Law pass?

The Kroll Opera House (where the Reichstag had been meeting since the fire) was surrounded by Hitler's private armies, and MPs had to push their way through the solid ranks of SS troops to get into the building. The 81 communist MPs were not allowed to pass. Inside the building the SA troops lined the walls and the SS could be heard chanting outside "We want the bill, or fire and murder." It took courage to vote against the bill in such surroundings and it passed 441 votes to 94 (all Social Democrats).

C. What was gleichschaltung?

Forcible co-ordination. This is what turned Germany into a fascist/totalitarian state. The government tried to control as many aspects of life as possible, using a huge police force and the Gestapo to do this. It became dangerous to criticise the government in any way.

D. What were the characteristics of gleichschaltung?

i. All political parties except the National Socialists were banned, causing Germany to be a single-party state.

ii. The separate state parliaments still existed but lost all power. Most of their functions were taken over by a Nazi Special Commissioner. There were no more state, provincial, or municipal elections.

iii. The civil service was purged; all Jews and other suspected 'enemies of the state' were removed so that it became fully reliable.

iv. Trade unions were abolished, their funds confiscated and their leaders arrested. They were replaced with the German Labour Front, to which all workers had to belong. Strikes were not allowed, and the government dealt with all grievances.

v. The education system was closely controlled so that children could be indoctrinated with Nazi opinions. For instance, textbooks were rewritten to fit in with Nazi theory, the best examples in history and biology. Human biology was dominated by the Nazi race theory as well. Teachers, lectures, professors had to make sure they did not express opinions which strayed from the party line and many lived in fear in case they were reported to the Gestapo by children of convinced Nazis. This was supplemented by the Hitler Youth to which all boys had to join at 14, and to the League of German Maidens for girls.

vi. There was a special policy concerned with the family. Since the Nazis worried about a decline in the birth rate, healthy families that were racially pure were encouraged to have more children. Family planning centres were closed down and contraceptives were banned.

vii. All communications in the media were controlled by the Minister of Propaganda, Dr. Joseph Goebbels. Radio, newspapers, books, magazines, theatre, film, and art were all supervised. By the end of 1934, 4000 books were on the forbidden list because they were un-German. Opinions could not be given that strayed from Nazi ideology.

viii. How was the economic life of the country organized?

a. Industrialists were told what to produce depending on what the country needed at the moment, closing factories down if their products weren't needed was not required.

b. Workers were moved around the country to places where jobs existed and labour was needed.

c. Farmers were encouraged to increase agricultural yields.

d. Food prices and rents were controlled.

e. Foreign exchange rates were manipulated to avoid inflation.

f. Vast schemes of public works; slum clearance, land drainage, and motorway building, were introduced.

g. Foreign countries were forced to buy German goods, either by refusing to pay cash for goods brought from those countries, so they had to accept German goods instead, or refusing permission to foreigners with bank accounts in Germany to withdraw their cash, so that they'd have to spend it in Germany on German goods.

h. Manufacturing synthetic rubber and wool and experimenting to produce petrol from coal in order to reduce dependence on foreign countries.

i. Increasing expenditure on armaments; in 1938-9, the military budget accounted for 52% of government spending.

ix. How was religion handled?

a. Catholics

Hitler at first signed an agreement with the Pope in which he agreed to not interfere with German Catholics in any way, in return they agreed to dissolve the Catholic Centre Party and take no further part in politics. The government, however, broke the Concordat by dissolving the Catholic Youth League because it rivaled the Hitler Youth. When Catholics protested their schools were closed down, and by 1937 Catholics were completely disillusioned with the Nazis. The Pope issued an Encyclical in which he condemned the Nazi movement, and Hitler was unimpressed and thousands of priests and nuns were sent to concentration camps as a result.

b. Protestants
A majority of Germans were Protestant, so Hitler tried to organize them into a 'Reich Church' with a Nazi as the first Reich bishop. Many pastors objected and a group of them protested to Hitler about government interference and about his treatment of the Jews. The Nazis were ruthless and 800 other pastors were sent to concentration camps. Hundreds more were arrested and the rest were forced to swear an oath of obedience to the Fuhrer.

x.

xi. Anti-Semitism

a. how was it legalized?

The Nuremberg Laws gave legal status to the campaign against the Jews, in which Jews were denied German citizenship, lost their jobs as journalists, doctors, lawyers, and teachers, forbade to marry non-Jews, and a rule was made that someone who was 1/4 or more Jewish was classified as a Jew.

b. examples of the law being carried out

1. Kristallnacht ('Night of the Broken Glass') which was a vicious attack on Jewish synagogues and other property throughout the whole country.

2. When WWII began the Jews were harassed in every way; their property attacked and burnt, their shops looted, synagogues destroyed and eventually, they were sent to concentration camps.

3. Hitler called it his 'Final Solution' - he intended to wipe out the whole Jewish race. He was able to lay his hands on non-German Jews during the war when Germany occupied such countries as Czechoslovakia, Poland, and western Russia.

E. How popular were Hitler's policies?

i. personal appeal - Military parades, torchlight processions, and fireworks displays were held in Nuremberg every year, and this appealed to the masses.

ii. unemployment - Hitler eliminated unemployment. When he came to power the unemployment figure was over 6 million, but by 1939 it disappeared completely. This is because the public works schemes provided many jobs. The party was expanding rapidly and this provided thousands of extra office and administrative posts. In addition, there were purges of Jews and anti-Nazis from the civil service and from other jobs connected with law, education, journalism, broadcasting, theatre, and music, leaving tons of vacancies. This was one of his biggest successes that made him popular.

iii. working people - The Strength through Joy Organization provided benefits such as subsidized holidays in Germany and abroad, cruises, ski-ing holidays, cheap theatre and concert tickets and convalescent homes. Other benefits were holidays with pay and control of rents. This made Hitler popular with workers.

iv. upper class - Wealthy industrialists and businessmen were delighted with the Nazis. They felt safe from a communist revolution and they were glad to be rid of trade unions, which had constantly pestered them with demands for shorter working hours and increased wages. They were also able to buy back at low prices the shares that they had sold to the state during the crisis of 1929-32. There was a promise of great profits from the public works schemes, rearmament, and other orders which the government placed with them.

v. farmers - They gradually warmed toward the Nazis despite initial hesitation once it became clear that the farmers were in a specially favored position in the state because of the declared Nazi aim of self-sufficiency in food production. Prices on agricultural produce were fixed so that they assured of a reasonable profit.

vi. the Army - they were much impressed with Hitler's handling of the troublesome SA in the Rohm Purge of 30 June 1934.

a. officers - well-disposed toward Hitler because of his aim of setting aside the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty by rearmament and the expansion of the army to its full strength.

b. lower ranks - there was a steady infiltration of the National Socialists into the lower ranks and this was beginning to work through to the lower officer classes.

c. Night of Long Knives - This was a way to purge society of the SA, because their leader Ernst Rohm was becoming an embarrassment to the chancellor. Rohm wanted his brownshirts to be merged with the Reichswehr and he made himself a general. In addition Rohm was homosexual and Hitler disapproved of this as well, and he considered the SA to be a bunch of gangsters, and Rohm was persistent with his demands which caused Hitler to have to choose between the Sa and the Reichswehr. Hitler used one of his private armies to deal with the other and he had the SA murdered as well as Rohm, in addition to people who were not even connected in any way.

vii. foreign policy - With each successive triumph, more and more Germans began to think of Hitler as infallible.

IRL 8, November 23, 2009

URL; http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-russia-stalin2-2009nov02,0,2551543.story

This is an article from Los Angeles Times, written by Megan K. Stack on November 2, 2009. Titled "Russia reconsiders; Was Stalin Really So Bad?" this article outlines how in Russia today, people view their Soviet past and Stalin with nostalgia and that the late Soviet dictator is "enjoying a renaissance of sorts in Russia." An example of this in the article is the picture that goes with it, which is of a man who resembles Stalin dressed exactly like him, on an escalator on his way to Red Square, so that people can have their picture taken with him. Throughout the course of the article, several people were quoted, including one Russian man who stated the following;

"The same doctors, teachers, builders and steelworkers continue to live and work in the same country, and everything in our midst was built by the hands of people in the Soviet Union. The state changes, but the country remains the same."

Another man quoted in the article states that maybe the deaths of millions of people under Stalin could have been justified by some higher state goal. The article states that many now view Stalin in a way of "hazy nostalgia" and that after having portrayed him as negative ever since the USSR collapsed in the 1990s, now people are starting to reconsider whether or not he was really as bad as they had thought. This relates to what we're studying in class because we had recently learned that Stalin had a very charismatic personality and that people held him in high regard despite all that he did that wasn't good, and that he attained a godlike status and was celebrated, with images of him everywhere. It adds value because it demonstrates that even today, after many years have passed, this trend, to view Stalin as good and worthy of celebration, is returning. This is the reason why you'd have Russians reconsidering Stalin and how to view him, and why you'd have impersonators dress up as him so that people could have their picture taken with him. People are looking at Stalin with nostalgia and fonder memories, showing that the attraction to him has not completely gone away and is in fact returning. The limitation to this article that makes me highly skeptical is the fact that it quotes a select few people and shows a picture of a Stalin impersonator, leading one to believe that the majority of Russians are starting to think highly of Stalin. However, no poll was taken, and there is no way of determining whether or not the people quoted in the article were chosen to prove a point or even if their opinion is the minority one. There's not enough information to be 100% clear, but still enough sufficient evidence to determine that to SOME extent, people still see Stalin as a benefactor of the past.

Effect of Purges on Soviet Society, November 13, 2009

Sources A and B reflect some of the ways in which Stalin's purges effected Soviet society. Source A is an extract from Natasha's Dance by Orlando Figes, and this extract demonstrates that it was difficult to express yourself without your intentions being questioned. Prokofiev's working life became difficult because he was accused of being a formalist (one who was regarded as preferring their art as an art form rather than it being understood by society as a whole), and he had to change his work so that he wouldn't give the wrong message and be accused of anything else.

Source B, an extract from Hope Against Hope by N Mandelstam, who along with her family were exiled in 1934, demonstrates how Stalin's terror at the time infiltrated the society in such a way that it was difficult to imagine the end of it. It is stated that it was essential to smile because if you didn't, it showed that you were discontented or nervous. The effect of this on society is that people could be accused of doing the wrong thing on a very superficial basis, and that it was necessary to make sure you seemed in line at all times, rather than letting your emotions show, because they could be interpreted the wrong way and cause people to be suspicious. This must have made life very difficult for the people of the USSR, since they would have to maintain a certain behavior at all times, so that people wouldn't realize just how horrified you were.

What the information in these two sources signifies about Stalin's purges and their effect on society is that they made life very difficult for the people, who had to hide their opinions, their horrified reactions, and their emotions in general so that they would not be accused of being anti-Stalin and against his motives, otherwise it would just make their lives worse and there would be consequences further down the road. I get this feeling because in source B it states "Even from your children you had to hide how horror-struck you were; otherwise they might let something slip at school." This is bad because the people couldn't even express their feelings without it seeming like they had something to hide. The purges made Soviet society a very emotionless one, because although people were terrified on the inside, they weren't allowed to show it and had to keep all of their feelings bottled up. Imagine a society where you couldn't express your views without consequences or even express basic emotions and here you have it.

IRL 7, November 12, 2009

URL;
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/stalin/97020

This article is written by Nick Bendel, a member of suite101.com, a website on which people can post their journal entries and articles, which are copyrighted. He was born in Australia and has a Bachelor of Media degree, and his article focuses on the murder of Kirov and the involvement of Nikolayev and Stalin in the murder. According to this article, Stalin to some extent had a grudge against Kirov, for a number of reasons. Many people in the Soviet Union felt that Stalin's policies were too harsh and Kirov, although generally a supporter of Stalin, did not approve of some of his methods, and a lot of people wanted Stalin to be replaced by Kirov. An example of this was in 1932 when Stalin demanded that one of his critics, Ryutin, be execited, and Kirov and the others in the party overrode his demand. Instances like these and the fact that Kirov was starting to win support at the expense of Stalin, were reasons why Stalin would have wanted to see Kirov dead, and Nikolayev, who was a very unstable man and had a grudge against the way the party handled some things and treated him, had the means to physically murder Kirov. It's stated here in the article that Nikolayev was able to get past security on the night that Kirov was murdered due to Stalin, who in some way manipulated security. This information and source is pertinent to what we're studying in class because we have read about Kirov's murder and were asked to look at the evidence and decide who was involved, and why. This article gives me more background information that allows me to make the connections for myself. There is one key limitation to this source, and that is the lack of background sources quoted with each specific piece of information stated to back up the author's point. For instance, he is, as far as I know, not a professor or a historian, and although what he is saying sounds accurate and plausible, he hasn't quoted any other sources IN his writing, but rather put a bibliography at the end, making it difficult to know if his claims come directly from the sources he used, or whether he threw information into the journal entry that is not directly from another source, since there are no footnotes for specific claims made. This is the main thing that would make me skeptical about trusting the information here, even though it's consistent with what we have learned in class.

IRL 6 - November 2, 2009

URL ; http://www.katardat.org/russia/pictures/photos-collectivisation.html

This source contains a collection of photos of collective farms and farmers that were forced to work on them, with most of the photos dated between 1930 and 1935. The photos are labeled by date and what they are of. This is pertinent to what we are studying in class because we have been studying collective farming in Soviet Russia in the 1930s and its successes and failures. This source adds value to what we've been studying because I can actually get a visual image of the farms, the farmers, and the materials that they had. For instance, one of the photographs is from 1931 and is labeled "Kolkhoz Field" and it depicts a line of tractors farming a giant field. The tractors all look the same and don't look to be the best quality either. Another photograph shows a woman driving a tractor, smiling, and the photograph appears to be posed. I am convinced a lot of these pictures were posed because another shows a peasant girl holding a rake, smiling. What I learned in class would go against this, because the peasants as far as I know did not like the idea of collective farming and put much more effort into their own private plots of land. Yet in these photographs, the peasants appear to be working hard and even enjoying their work. What I can deduce from this is that the photographs that were taken were posed, to hide the reality about how collective farming made the peasants feel and to make it look more successful than it was, because from these photographs, one would never know that the peasants had a problem with the collective farming or didn't give the farming their all. I can sense that these photos were initially used as propaganda. That is one of the limitations of this source - I do not know who compiled the pictures, or if the labels and dates are necessarily correct since they are typed BELOW the pictures and not stamped on them. However the photographs do depict large areas of land being farmed by many peasants who appear to be from that part of the world, so I can safely assume these photos do depict collective farming.