Nazism and the Rise of Hitler and

Class- 9
Explain the impact of the First World War on
European society and polity.
•
Answer:
The First World War left a deep imprint on European society and polity. It
had a devastating impact on the entire continent.
•
(a) In society, soldiers were ranked higher than civilians. Trench life of the
soldiers was glorified by the media. The media glorified trench life.
•
(b) Politicians and publicists laid great stress on the need for men to be
aggressive and masculine.
•
(c) Aggressive war propaganda and national honour occupied centre
stage in the public sphere.
(d) Popular support grew for conservative dictatorships that had recently
come into being.
(e) Democracy as a young and fragile idea could not survive the
instabilities of interwar Europe
 Why an International Military Tribunal at
Nuremberg set up?
At the end of the war, an International Military
Tribunal at Nuremberg was set up to - 1.
prosecute Nazi war criminals for Crimes against
Peace, for War Crimes and Crimes Against
Humanity.
Who formed allied powers and Axis powers ?

• Allied Powers - The Allied Powers were initially

led by the UK and France. In 1941 they were
joined by the USSR and USA.
• Axis Powers –The allied powers fought against
the Axis Powers, namely Germany, Italy and
Japan.
 Trace the events that led to the birth of the
Weimar Republic.
•
Answer:
In the 20th century Germany was a powerful Empire. During the
First World War Germany took up the cause of Austria against
the Allies. Many countries joined the war hoping to gain
something, without realizing the fact that the war would prolong
and drain Europe of its resources. Though Germany made initial
gains by occupying France and Belgium, the Allies became
stronger when the US joined them in 1917 and defeated Germany
and the Central Powers.
• The defeat of Germany resulted in the abdication of the German
Emperor. This gave an opportunity for the parliamentary parties
to bring in a change, in German politics. A democratic
constitution with a federal structure was formed by the National
Assembly, which met at Weimar and the Weimar Republic came
into existence.
The Treaty of Versailles was humiliating on the Germans.” Give
three examples in support of your statement .

Answer:
The Treaty of Versailles was humiliating on the Germans
in the following ways.
(a) The War Guilt clause held Germany responsible for
the war and damages, the Allied countries suffered.
(b) Germany was forced to pay compensation
amounting to £ 6 billion.
(c) Germany lost her overseas possessions, 13 per cent
of her territories, 75 per cent of its iron and 26 per cent
of its coal to France, Poland, Denmark and Lithuania
 State the verdict of the Nuremberg Tribunal. Why did
the Allies avoid harsh punishment to Germany?
•
Answer:
The Nuremberg Tribunal convicted Germany and
dubbed its conduct during war as crime against
humanity. The allies avoided harsh punishment to
Germany because of the following reasons.
(a) They did not want to repeat the mistakes done
after First World War by being harsh to Germany
that gave rise to the ideology of Nazism under
Hitler.
(b) They were conscious about another
destructive war that could erase humanity.
 How deputies of Weimar Republic were
elected?
• In Weimar republic Deputies were now
elected to the German Parliament or
Reichstag, on the basis of equal and universal
votes cast by all adults including women.
Who were known as November criminals?

• Those who supported the Weimar Republic,

mainly Socialists, Catholics and Democrats,
became easy targets of attack in the
conservative nationalist circles. They were
mockingly called the November criminals.
 Write a short note on Spartacist League. Or,
Why Communists and Socialists became irreconcilable enemies?

• The birth of the Weimar Republic coincided with the revolutionary

uprising of the Spartacist League on the pattern of the Bolshevik
Revolution in Russia. Soviets of workers and sailors were established
in many cities. The political atmosphere in Berlin was charged with
demands for Soviet-style governance. Those opposed to this such as
the socialists, Democrats and Catholics met in Weimar to give
shape to the democratic republic. The Weimar Republic crushed the
uprising with the help of a war veterans organisation called Free
Corps. The anguished Spartacists later founded the Communist Party
of Germany. Communists and Socialists henceforth became
irreconcilable enemies and could not make common cause against
Hitler.
 Why the value of German Mark fell ?
• The reasons behind the low value of German mark are
as follows:
• Germany had fought the war largely on loans and had
to pay war reparations in gold. This depleted gold
reserves at a time resources were scarce.
• In 1923 Germany refused to pay, and the French
occupied its leading industrial area, Ruhr, to claim
their coal.
• Germany retaliated with passive resistance and
printed paper currency recklessly. With too much
printed money in circulation, the value of the German
mark fell.
 What is hyperinflation?
• Hyperinflation indicates a situation when
prices rise phenomenally high. For example
after the first world war as the value of the
mark collapsed, prices of goods soared. The
image of Germans carrying cartloads of
currency notes to buy a loaf of bread was
widely publicised evoking worldwide
sympathy. This crisis is similar to
hyperinflation.
 Write a short note on Dawes Plan . Or
Who helped the German ?
• The Americans intervened and bailed
Germany out of the crisis by introducing the
Dawes Plan, which reworked the terms of
reparation to ease the financial burden on
Germans.
 What was the reason behind the economic
crisis of 1929?

• Wall Street Exchange crashed in 1929. Fearing a fall in

prices, people made frantic efforts to sell their shares.
On one single day, 24 October, 13 million shares were
sold.
• This was the start of the Great Economic Depression.
• Over the next three years, between 1929 and 1932,
the national income of the USA fell by half.
• Factories shut down, exports fell, farmers were badly
hit and speculators withdrew their money from the
market. The effects of this recession in the US
economy were felt worldwide which was known as
economic crisis
 What was the effect of economic crisis in
Germany?
• The German economy was the worst hit by the economic crisis.

1 Industrial production was reduced to 40 per cent of the production level of

1929.
2. Workers lost their jobs or were paid reduced wages.
3.The number of unemployed touched an unprecedented 6 million.
4. The youth took to criminal activities and total despair became
commonplace.
5.The economic crisis created deep anxieties and fears in people.
6. The middle classes, especially salaried employees and pensioners, saw
their savings diminish when the currency lost its value.
7. The large mass of peasantry was affected by a sharp fall in agricultural
prices
8. women, unable to fill their children’s stomachs, were filled with a sense of
deep despair.
What was defects of Weimar republic? How did
it affect the politics Germany ?
• Politically too the Weimar Republic was fragile. The Weimar
constitution had some inherent defects, which made it unstable
and vulnerable to dictatorship. They are as follows:
1. One was proportional representation. This made achieving a
majority by any one party a near impossible task, leading to a
rule by coalitions.
2. Another defect was Article 48, which gave the President the
powers to impose emergency, suspend civil rights and rule by
decree.
Within its short life, the Weimar Republic saw twenty different
cabinets lasting on an average 239 days, and a liberal use of Article
48. Yet the crisis could not be managed. People lost confidence in the
democratic parliamentary system, which seemed to offer no
solutions.
Why Nazism became a mass movement?
• It was during the Great Depression that Nazism
became a mass movement. The reasons behind this
mass movement are-
• After economic crisis in 1929,banks collapsed and
businesses were shut down.
• Workers lost their jobs
• The middle classes were threatened with destitution.
• In such a situation Nazi propaganda stirred hopes of a
better future.
In 1928, the Nazi Party got no more than 2. 6 per cent
votes in the Reichstag . The German parliament. By 1932,
it had become the largest party with
 Write down a short note on the early life of
Hitler
• Born in 1889 in Austria, Hitler spent his youth in
poverty. When the First World War broke out, he
enrolled for the army, acted as a messenger in the
front, became a corporal, and earned medals for
bravery. The German defeat horrified him and the
Versailles Treaty made him furious. In 1919, he
joined a small group called the German Workers.
Party. He subsequently took over the organisation
and renamed it the National Socialist German
Workers. Party. This party came to be known as
the Nazi Party.
What were the promises of Hitler to German
people?
• Hitler was a powerful speaker.
• He promised to build a strong nation,
• undo the injustice of the Versailles Treaty and
restore the dignity of the German people.
• He promised employment for those looking for
work, and a secure future for the youth.
• He promised to weed out all foreign influences
and resist all foreign ,conspiracies against Germany.
How did Hitler mobilise German people ?
• Hitler devised a new style of politics.
• He understood the significance of rituals and
spectacle in mass mobilisation.
• Nazis held massive rallies public meetings to
demonstrate the support for Hitler
• He tried to instil a sense of unity among the people
with following ways :
1.The Red banners with the Swastika,
2.The Nazi salute,
3. The ritualised rounds of applause after
4. The speeches were all part of this spectacle of power
What steps were taken by Adolf Hitler for the
destruction of democracy ?
Answer:
The following steps were taken by Hitler for the destruction of democracy :
• President Hindenburg offered the Chancellorship, the highest position in the cabinet
of ministers, to Hitler.
•  A mysterious fire that broke out in the German Parliament building in February,
1933 indefinitely suspended civic rights. It is said that the fire was broken out by
Hitler’s supporters, while Hitler blamed his political enemies for it. The Fire Decree of
28 February, 1933 indefinitely suspended civic rights such as freedom of expression,
speech, press and assembly that had been guaranteed by the Weimar Constitution.
• After that Adolf Hitler turned on his enemy, i.e., the Communists of Germany, most ‘
of the communists were quickly packed off to the newly established concentration
camps.
• On 3 March 1933, the famous Enabling Act was passed. This Act established
dictatorship in Germany. It gave Hitler all powers to side-line Parliament and rule by
decree. All political parties and trade unions were banned except for the Nazi Party
and its affiliates.
• Special surveillance and security forces were created to control and order society in
ways that the Nazis wanted. Apart from the already existing regular police in green
uniform and the SA or the Storm Troopers, these included the Gestapo (secret state
police), the SS (the protection squads), criminal police and the Security Service (SD).
 Discuss Hitler’s economic policy .Or,
What did Hitler do to overcome the economic crisis that badly hit the German economy ?

• Hitler assigned the responsibility of economic recovery

to the economist Hjalmar Schacht who aimed at full
production and full employment through a state-
funded work-creation programme. This project
produced the famous German superhighways and the
people’s car, the Volkswagen.
• Schacht had advised Hitler against investing hugely in
rearmament as the state still ran on deficit financing.
Cautious people, however, had no place in Nazi
Germany. Schacht had to leave. Hitler chose war as the
way out of the approaching economic crisis. Resources
were to be accumulated through expansion of
territory.
 Write short note on Hitler’s foreign policy .

• In foreign policy also Hitler acquired quick successes.

• He pulled out of the League of Nations in 1933.
• He reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936, and integrated Austria and Germany in
1938 under the slogan, One people, One empire, and One leader.
• He then went on to wrest German speaking Sudenten land from Czechoslovakia,
and gobbled up the entire country.
• In all of this he had the unspoken support of England, which had considered the
Versailles verdict too harsh.
• These quick successes at home and abroad seemed to reverse the destiny of the
country.
• In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. This started a war with France and
England.
• In September 1940, a Tripartite Pact was signed between Germany, Italy and
• Japan, strengthening Hitler’s claim to international power.
• Puppet regimes, supportive of Nazi Germany, were installed in a large
• part of Europe.
• He attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941.
 What was the historic blunder Hitler
committed in 1941?
• Hitler wanted to ensure food supplies and living space for
Germans.
• He attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941.
• In this historic blunder Hitler exposed the German western front
to British aerial bombing and the eastern front to the powerful
Soviet armies.
• The Soviet Red Army inflicted a crushing and humiliating defeat on
Germany at Stalingrad. After this the Soviet Red Army
hounded out the retreating German soldiers until they reached the
• heart of Berlin
• Thus they helped in establishing Soviet hegemony over the entire
Eastern Europe for half a century thereafter.
How America’s involvement in Second world
war change the fate for Hitler.
USA had resisted involvement in the war. It was unwilling
to once again face all the economic problems that the
First World War had caused. But it could not stay out of
the war for long. Japan was expanding its power in the
east. It had occupied French Indo-China and was
planning attacks on US naval bases in the Pacific. When
Japan extended its support to Hitler and bombed the US
base at Pearl Harbor , the US entered the Second World
War. The war ended in May 1945 with Hitler’s defeat and
the US
dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima in Japan.
What was Nazi ideology about human race?
Ans: Nazi ideology was synonymous with Hitler’s worldview.
According to this -
• There was no equality between people, but only a racial
hierarchy.
• In this view blond, blue-eyed, Nordic German Aryans
were at the top, while Jews were located at the lowest rung. They
came to be regarded as an anti-race, the arch-enemies of the Aryans.
• All other coloured people were placed in between depending
upon their external features
• The Nazi argument was simple: the strongest race would survive
and the weak ones would perish. The Aryan race was the finest. It
had to retain its purity, become stronger and dominate the world.
 From whom did Hitler borrow his racist
ideology ? Explain.
•
Answer:
Hitler borrowed his racist ideology from thinkers like Charles
Darwin and Herbert Spencer.
(a) Darwin was a natural scientist who tried to explain the creation
of plants and • animals through the concept of evolution and
natural selection. Darwin never
advocated human intervention in what he thought was a purely
natural process of selection.
(b) Herbert Spencer later added the idea of survival of the fittest.
According to this idea, only those species survived on earth that
could adapt themselves to changing climatic conditions.
However, his ideas were used by racist thinkers and politicians to
justify imperial rule over conquered people.
Explain the concept of of Lebensraum.
• Hitler’s ideology related to the geopolitical concept is
known Lebensraum, or living space.
• He believed that new territories had to be acquired
for settlement.
• This would enhance the area of the mother country,
while enabling the settlers on new lands to retain an
intimate link with the place of their origin.
• It would also enhance the material resources and
power of the German nation.
• Hitler intended to extend German boundaries by
moving eastwards to concentrate all Germans
geographically in one place.
• Poland became the laboratory for this
experimentation.
 Explain desirable and undesirable concept of
German nationality in Hitler’s regime .
• Once in power, the Nazis quickly began to implement their dream
of creating an exclusive racial community of pure Germans .
• Nazis wanted only a society of pure and healthy Nordic Aryans.
They alone were considered as desirable. Only they were seen as
worthy of prospering and multiplying against all others.
• Jews community were classified as undesirable in Hitler’s
regime .
There were others. Many Gypsies and blacks living in Nazi Germany
were considered as racial inferiors who threatened the biological
purity of the superior Aryan. Russians and Poles were also
considered subhuman and hence undeserving of any humanity and
classified as undesirable.
 How Poland became the laboratory of Hitler racial utopia?
Ans: In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland .
• Occupied Poland was divided up.
• Much of north-western Poland was annexed to Germany.
• Poles were forced to leave their homes and properties behind to
be occupied by ethnic Germans brought in from occupied Europe.
• Poles were then herded like cattle in the other part called the
General Government, the destination of all .undesirables of the
empire.
• Members of the Polish intelligentsia were murdered in large
numbers in order to keep the entire people intellectually and
spiritually servile.
• Polish children who looked like Aryans were forcibly snatched
from their mothers
• If they passed the race tests they were raised in German families
and if not, they were deposited in orphanages where most
perished.
• With some of the largest ghettos and gas chambers, the General
Government also served as the killing he killing fields for the Jews.
Discuss the different stages of elimination
of Jews from the world by Hitler.
• Jews remained the worst sufferers in Nazi
Germany
• From 1933 to 1938 the Nazis terrorised,
pauperised and segregated the Jews,
compelling them to leave the country.
• The next phase, 1939-1945, aimed at
concentrating them in certain areas and
eventually killing them in gas chambers in
Poland. This was done in following stages-
• Stage 1: Exclusion 1933-1939
• YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO LIVE AMONG US AS CITIZENS

• The Nuremberg Laws of citizenship of September 1935:

• 1. Only Persons of German or related blood would henceforth be German
citizens enjoying the protection of the German empire.
• 2. Marriages between Jews and Germans were forbidden.
• 3. Extramarital relations between Jews and Germans became a crime.
• 4. Jews were forbidden to fly the national flag.
• Other legal measures included:
• Boycott of Jewish businesses
• Expulsion from government services
• Forced selling and confiscation of their properties
• Besides, Jewish properties were vandalised and looted, houses attacked,
• synagogues burnt and men arrested in a pogrom in November. 1938,
remembered as ‘the night of broken glass
• Stage 2: Ghettoisation 1940 - 1944

• From September 1941, all Jews had to wear a yellow

Star of David on their breasts. This identity mark was
stamped on their passport.
• All legal documents and houses. They were kept in
Jewish houses in Germany, and in ghettos like Lodz
and Warsaw in the east.
• These became sites of extreme misery and poverty.
Jews had to surrender all their wealth before they
entered a ghetto.
• Soon the ghettos were brimming with hunger,
starvation and disease due to deprivation and poor
hygiene.
• Stage 3: Annihilation 1941 onwards
• Jews were brought from Jewish houses,
concentration camps and ghettos from
different parts of Europe were brought to
death factories by goods trains.
• They were charred in gas chambers. Mass
killings took place within minutes with
scientific precision.
 What happened in schools under Nazism?
• All schools were cleansed and purified. This meant that teachers
who were Jews or seen as politically unreliable were dismissed.
Children were first segregated Germans and Jews could not sit
together or play together.
• Subsequently , undesirable children Jews, the physically
handicapped, Gypsies .were thrown out of schools. And finally in
the 1940s, they were taken to the gas chambers.
• Good German children were subjected to a process of Nazi
schooling, a prolonged period of ideological training. School
textbooks were rewritten.
• Racial science was introduced to justify Nazi ideas of race.
• Stereotypes about Jews were popularised even through maths
classes.
• Children were taught to be loyal and submissive, hate Jews, and
worship Hitler.
• Even the function of sports was to nurture a spirit of violence
and aggression among children. Hitler believed that boxing could
make
children iron hearted, strong and masculine.
 ,

What was expected from the youth in Hitler regime ? Or

Write a short note on Hitler Youth and its function.

• Youth organisations were made responsible for educating German

youth in the spirit of National Socialism.
• Ten-year-olds had to enter Jungvolk.
• At 14, all boys had to join the Nazi youth organisation or Hitler
Youth where they learnt to worship war, glorify aggression and
violence, condemn democracy, and hate Jews, communists,
Gypsies and all those categorised as undesirable.
• After a period of rigorous ideological and physical training they
joined the Labour Service, usually at the age of 18.
• Then they had to serve in the armed forces and enter one of the
Nazi organisations.
• The Youth League of the Nazis was founded in 1922. Four years
later it was renamed Hitler Youth.
• To unify the youth movement under Nazi control, all other youth
organisations were systematically dissolved.
• The Youth League of the Nazis was founded in 1922. Four years
later it was renamed Hitler Youth. To unify the youth movement
under Nazi control, all other youth organisations were
systematically dissolved and finally banned.
 How were women treated in Nazi Germany?

•
Answer:
Women in the Nazi Germany were treated as important citizens.
Motherhood was glorified, but not all mothers were not treated
equally. The women who bore desirable children were awarded.
They were given favoured treatment in hospitals and concessions
in theatres and shops. Those who bore undesirable children were
condemned and punished severely.
• Honour Crosses were given to women who produced more
children. Women with 4 children were given a Bronze cross,
women with 5 were given a Silver cross , while women who bore 8
children and more were given a Gold cross.
Aryan women who deviated from the given code of conduct were
severely punished
 In my state the mother is the most important citizen.’
Discuss this statement made by Hitler.
•
Answer:
(a) Though Hitler said that in my state the mother is
the most important citizen, it was not true.
(b) All mothers were not treated equally. Women who
bore racially desirable children were awarded, while
those who bore racially undesirable children were
punished.
(c) Women who bore ‘desirable’ children were entitled
to privileges and rewards. They were given special
treatment in hospitals and concessions in shops and
on theatre tickets and railway fares.
 What was expected from women under Hitler’s
regime?
• The fight for equal rights for men and women
that had become part of democratic struggles
everywhere was considered wrong in German
society.
• While boys were taught to be aggressive,
masculine and steel hearted, girls were told
that
Women had to become good mothers and rear
pure-blooded Aryan children.
• Girls had to maintain the purity of the race,
distance themselves from Jews, look after the
home, and teach their children Nazi values.
 What do you mean by the word propaganda ?
What was the purpose of Nazi propaganda?
• Propaganda means specific type of message
directly aimed at influencing the opinion of
people (through the use of posters, films,
speeches, etc.)
• Nazi propaganda skilfully projected Hitler as a
messiah, a saviour, as someone who had arrived
to deliver people from their distress. It is an image
that captured the imagination of a people whose
sense of dignity and pride had been shattered,
and who were living in a time of acute economic
and political crises.
Write a brief note on Nazi Propoganda.
• Nazi ideas were spread through visual images, films, radio,
posters, catchy slogans and leaflets. In posters, groups
identified as the .enemies. of Germans were stereotyped,
mocked, abused and described as evil. Socialists and
liberals were represented as weak and degenerate. They
were attacked as malicious foreign agents. Propaganda films
were made to create hatred for Jews. The most infamous
film was The Eternal Jew. Orthodox Jews were
stereotyped and marked. They were shown with flowing
beards wearing kaftans, whereas in reality it was difficult to
distinguish German Jews by their outward appearance
because they were a highly assimilated community. They
were referred to as vermin, rats and pests.
 What were the terms given by the Nazis when they wanted to
convey the words ’kill’ or ‘murder in their official
communications ?
•
Answer:
The Nazis used the words ‘special treatment or
final Solution’ to convey mass killing of the Jews.
The words , ‘selection or disinfection’ was used for
the elimination of the disabled and to deport
people to the Gas Chambers the Nazis used the
word ‘evacuation’.
Gas Chambers were called ‘disinfection areas’.
These chambers looked like a bath rooms with
fake showerheads
 How did the common people react to
Nazism?
• Many saw the world through Nazi eyes, and spoke
their mind in Nazi language. They felt hatred and
anger surge inside them when they saw someone
who looked like a Jew. They marked the houses of
Jews and reported suspicious neighbours. They
genuinely believed Nazism would bring prosperity
and improve general well-being. But not every
German was a Nazi. Many organised active
resistance to Nazism, braving police repression
and death.