Rise of

Nazism
Timeline of events
• 1918 – 1919 – Collapse of German monarchy
• 1919 – Weimar Republic established
• 1919- 1933 – period of Weimar Republic.
• 1933 -1945 Hitler’s dictatorship
Germany after WW1
• The defeat of Imperial Germany and the abdication of the emperor
gave an opportunity to parliamentary parties to recast German polity.
• A National Assembly met at Weimar and established a democratic
constitution with a federal structure.
• Deputies were now elected to the German Parliament or Reichstag,
on the basis of equal and universal votes cast by all adults including
women.
• This republic, however, was not received well by its own people
largely because of the terms it was forced to accept after Germany’s
defeat at the end of the First World War.
• Germany lost its overseas colonies, a tenth of its population, 13 per
cent of its territories, 75 per cent of its iron and 26 per cent of its coal
to France, Poland, Denmark and Lithuania.
• Many Germans held the new Weimar Republic responsible for not
only the defeat in the war but the disgrace at Versailles.
• The republic carried the burden of war guilt and national humiliation
and was financially crippled by being forced to pay compensation.
• Those who supported the Weimar Republic, mainly Socialists,
Catholics and Democrats, became easy targets of attack in the
conservative nationalist circle.
Political Radicalism and Economic Crises
• The birth of the Weimar Republic coincided with the revolutionary
uprising of the Spartacist League on the pattern of the Bolshevik
Revolution in Russia.
• 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 organization called Free Corps. The anguished Spartacists
later founded the Communist Party of Germany.
• 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.
• The years between 1924 and 1928 saw some stability under Weimar Republic.
• German investments and industrial recovery were totally dependent on short-term loans,
largely from the USA. This support was withdrawn when the Wall Street Exchange crashed in
1929.
• The German economy was the worst hit by the economic crisis. By 1932, industrial production
was reduced to 40 per cent of the 1929 level. Workers lost their jobs or were paid reduced
wages.
• The number of unemployed touched an unprecedented 6 million. On the streets of Germany
you could see men with placards around their necks saying, ‘Willing to do any work’
• People lost confidence in the democratic parliamentary system, which seemed to offer no
solutions.
Hitler’s Rise to Power
• This crisis in the economy, polity and society formed the background to
Hitler’s rise to power.
• 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 organization and renamed it the National
Socialist German Workers’ Party. This party came to be known as the Nazi
Party
• In 1923, Hitler planned to seize control of Bavaria, march to Berlin and
capture power. He failed, was arrested, tried for treason, and later
released.
• While in prison he wrote his autobiography Mien kampf which
contained the autobiography of Nazism
• It was during the Great Depression that Nazism became a mass
movement.
• 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 37 per cent votes.
• Hitler was a powerful speaker. His passion and his words moved people.
• He promised to build a strong nation, undo the injustice of the Versailles
Treaty and restore the dignity of the German people.
• Nazis held massive rallies and public meetings to demonstrate the
support for Hitler and installed a sense of unity among the people.
• The Red banners with the Swastika, the Nazi salute, and the ritualised
rounds of applause after the speeches were all part of this spectacle of
power.
• Nazi propaganda skillfully projected Hitler as a messiah, a savior, as
someone who had arrived to deliver people from their distress.
• On 30 January 1933, President Hindenburg offered the
Chancellorship, the highest position in the cabinet of ministers, to
Hitler
• Having acquired power, Hitler set out to dismantle the structures of
democratic rule.
• He turned on his archenemies, the Communists, most of whom were
hurriedly 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
sideline Parliament and rule by decree.
• All political parties and trade unions were banned except for the Nazi
Party and its affiliates.
• The state established complete control over the economy, media,
army and judiciary.
Reconstruction
• 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.
• Economic self-sufficiency was the goal of Hitler In order to achieve this he
successfully implemented certain agricultural plans.
• The area of cultivation increased, agriculture was mechanized and better fertilizers
were used. Dairy farms were set up. Efforts were made to lessen unemployment.
• The trade unions were suppressed. All labor organizations were dissolved. A single
official organization called the labor Front was set up. Strikes and lock outs were
declared illegal.
Education and Propaganda

• Special attempts were made to cultivate Nazi ideas of race and German superiority among
the students.
• It was believed that the entire function of education was to create Nazist feelings.
• Teachers had to swear by the Nazi philosophy.
• All university students had to join the German Students Union and had to participate in all
Nazi programmes.
• Hundreds of newspapers made propaganda for the development of Nazi Party.Foreign
Policy of HitlerHitler followed an aggressive foreign policy. The disarmament clauses of the
treaty of Versailles were undermined by Hitler. He started re-arming the nation by many
novel forces. He occupied Austria in 1938.He also wanted the western Czechoslovakia
where a lot of Germans lived. The part of Munich Pact was signed by which he had gained
more. When Hitler attacked in 1939 England and France declared war on Germany which in
a way led to the out broke of the Second World War
Foreign Policy
• Hitler followed an aggressive foreign policy.
• The disarmament clauses of the treaty of Versailles were undermined
by Hitler.
• He started re-arming the nation by many novel forces.
• He occupied Austria in 1938.He also wanted the western
Czechoslovakia where a lot of Germans lived. The part of Munich Pact
was signed by which he had gained more.
• When Hitler attacked Poland in 1939 England and France declared war
on Germany which in a way led to the out broke of the Second World
War
• 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.
• The other aspect of Hitler’s ideology related to the geopolitical
concept of Lebensraum, or living space. He believed that new
territories had to be acquired for settlement
• The Holocaust, was the genocide of European Jews during World War
II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators
systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-
occupied Europe; around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population.
The murders were carried out in pogroms and mass shootings; by a
policy of extermination through labor in concentration camps; and in
gas chambers and gas vans in German extermination camps.
“പ്രിയപ്പെട്ട ടീച്ചർ,

ഞാൻ നാസി കോൺസെൻട്രേഷൻ ക്യാമ്പിൽനിന്ന് ആളാണ്. ഒരു മനുഷ്യനും ജീവിതത്തിൽ ഒരിക്കലും കാണകാഴ്ചകൾ

ഞാൻ അവിടെ കണ്ടിട്ടുണ്ട്. പഠിച്ച എൻജിനീയർമാർ പണിത ഗ്യാസ്ചേമ്പറുകൾ, കുട്ടികളെ വിഷം കൊടുത്തു കൊല്ലു

ഫിസിഷ്യന്മാർ, പിറന്നുവീണ കുഞ്ഞുങ്ങളെ കൊല്ലുന്ന പരിശീലനം സിദ്ധിച്ച നഴ്സുമാർ, സ്ത്രീകളെയും കുഞ്ഞുങ്ങളെയും വെടി

വെച്ചുകൊന്ന് കുഴിച്ചുമൂടുന്ന ഹൈസ്കൂൾ ഗ്രാറ്റുകൾ... അങ്ങനെ പലതും. ഞാൻ അതുകൊണ്ട് വിദ്യാഭ്യാസത്തെക്കുറിച്ച്

സംശയാലുവാണ്. എന്റെ അഭ്യർത്ഥന നിങ്ങൾ നിങ്ങളുടെ കുട്ടികളെ നല്ല മനുഷ്യനാവാൻ സഹായിക്കണം എന്നാണ്.

നിങ്ങളുടെ ശ്രമങ്ങൾ ഒരിക്കലും പഠിച്ച രാക്ഷസന്മാരെ, പരിശീലനം സിദ്ധിച്ച സൈക്കോപത്തുകളെ, വിദ്യാസമ്പന്നരായ

ഭീകരന്മാരെ സൃഷ്ടിക്കാ നാവരുത്. എഴുത്ത്, വായന, ഗണിതം തുടങ്ങിയവ പ്രധാനപ്പെട്ടതാകുന്നത് അവ നമ്മുടെ കുട്ടികളെ

കൂടുതൽ മനുഷ്യത്വമുള്ളവരാക്കിത്തീർക്കുന്നു എങ്കിൽ മാത്രമാണ്.”