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.