Adolf Hitler

Rise to Power

Life after WW I• Hitler was depressed

after WW I.

• Still in the army, he became an undercover agent whose job was to root out Communists.

• Also, lectured about the dangers of Communism and Jews

Involvement in the German Worker’s Party-DAP (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

• Hitler was sent to investigate this group in Munich in 1919. There was much suspicion of labor groups in those days.

• He went to a meeting and interrupted the proceedings with a diatribe.

• The founder, Anton Drexler, was impressed and offered him a membership. Hitler accepted and joined the DAP which had at that point only 7 members.

DAP Grows• Hitler began to think big for the

DAP, proving himself to be a shrewd organizer and tactician.

• Began to develop a cohesive ideology for the party and an image.

• Began promoting the party, placing ads for meetings in anti-Semitic newspapers and spreading propaganda.

• Formed a party army of ‘storm-troopers’-the Sturmabteilung or the S.A. This brown-shirted paramilitary group was headed by Hitler’s close friend, Ernst Roehm. Initially, Hitler had called them the ‘Gymnastics and Sports Division.’

• Within 2 years, Hitler had become absolute leader of the Party.

►Hitler changes the DAP into the NSDAP (National Socialist Party)—the Nazis are born

•By 1923, Hitler believes that the conditions in the Weimar Republic were ripe for his takeover.

•The Ruhr has been confiscated. The Weimar mark has dropped to a rate of 4 bil to a dollar. And Hitler imagines himself powerful enough to attempt a coup. (But the Nazis are only strong in Bavaria)

►He decides that the moment he has been dreaming of has finally arrived.

And so he stages the infamous Beer Hall Putsch…

The Beer Hall Putsch• The Nazis and the SA take over a

political meeting of some 3000 Bavarians.

• ‘The national revolution has begun!’

• Hitler forces the leaders at gunpoint to commit to his government.

• But the Nazis made a crucial error: they did not arrest telecommunications.

• The German national military rushes in and crushes the coup.

• Hitler, the Nazi Party and its leadership are scattered.

• Hitler is arrested for high treason.

• The national revolution will have to wait…

Trial and Jail

•Hitler served as his own lawyer and brilliantly transformed the trial into a spectacle.•The whole nation suddenly knew who Adolf Hitler was and what he stood for.•He was sentenced to five years, but actually served less than a year, •9 months later, he emerged as a patriot and hero to some, a fool and has-been to others.•But more importantly, he had written his wicked manifesto…

-During his prison term, Hitler dictates his badly organized and practically unreadable treatise-Mein Kampf. (He had wanted to call it Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice.)

-Mein Kampf is a blueprint of insane retribution. It is essentially a litany of hatred: against communists, the French, Slavs, Weimar traitors, and most of all Jews

-He clearly states his plan: world domination, leibensraum, the destruction of democracy, etc.

Mankind has grown great in eternal struggle, and only in eternal peace does it perish…Nature confers the Master’s right on the strongest. They must dominate. They have the right to victory. Those who do not want to fight in this world do not deserve to live. Even if this were hard-that is how it is!

-But…Hitler recognizes that he must change tactics

When I resume work it will be necessary to pursue a new policy. Instead of working to achieve power through an armed coup, we shall have to hold our noses and enter the Reichstag against the Catholic and Marxist deputies. If out-voting them takes longer than out-shooting them, at least the result will be guaranteed by their own (Weimar) constitution. Any lawful process is slow…sooner or later we will have a majority—and after that, Germany…

The Swastika

The swastika was an ancient symbol usually associated with the sun. It is still commonly used in Buddhist shrines.

Due to incorrect translations in Sanskrit/German dictionaries Hitler believed that the swastika was a symbol that represented the word Swasie which meant Aryan. This was not the case.

Party Platform

• The Programme of the German Workers' Party is designed to be of limited duration. The leaders have no intention, once the aims announced in it have been achieved, of establishing fresh ones, merely in order to…ensure the continued existence of the Party.

• 1. We demand the union of all Germany in a Greater Germany on the basis of the right of national self-determination.

• 2. We demand equality of rights for the German people in its dealings with other nations, and the revocation of the peace treaties of Versailles.

• 3. We demand land and territory (colonies) to feed our people and to settle our surplus population.

• 4. Only members of the nation may be citizens of the State. Only those of German blood, whatever be their creed, may be members of the nation. Accordingly, no Jew may be a member of the nation.

• 5. Non-citizens may live in Germany only as guests and must be subject to laws for aliens.

The NSDAP 25 Points Continued

• 7. We demand that the State shall make it its primary duty to provide a livelihood for its citizens. If it should prove impossible to feed the entire population, foreign nationals (non-citizens) must be deported from the Reich.

• 8. All non-German immigration must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who entered Germany after 2 August 1914 shall be required to leave the Reich forthwith.

• 9. All citizens shall have equal rights and duties. • 10. It must be the first duty of every citizen to perform physical or mental work. The

activities of the individual must not clash with the general interest, but must proceed within the framework of the community and be for the general good.

• We demand therefore: 11. The abolition of incomes unearned by work.

• The breaking of the slavery of interest 12. In view of the enormous sacrifices of life and property demanded of a nation by any war, personal enrichment from war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. We demand therefore the ruthless confiscation of all war profits.

• 13. We demand the nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations (trusts).

• 14. We demand profit-sharing in large industrial enterprises.

• 19. We demand that Roman Law, which serves a materialistic world order, be replaced by a German common law.

• 20. The State must consider a thorough reconstruction of our national system of education. The aim of the school must be to give the pupil, beginning with the first sign of intelligence, a grasp of the nation of the State. We demand the education of gifted children of poor parents, whatever their class or occupation, at the expense of the State.

• 21. The State must ensure that the nation's health standards are raised by protecting mothers and infants, by prohibiting child labor, by promoting physical strength through legislation providing for compulsory gymnastics and sports, and by the extensive support of clubs engaged in the physical training of youth.

• 22. We demand the abolition of the mercenary army and the foundation of a people's army.

• 23. We demand legal warfare on deliberate political mendacity and its dissemination in the press. To facilitate the creation of a German national press we demand:

• (a) that all editors of, and contributors to newspapers appearing in the German language must be members of the nation; (b) that no non-German newspapers may appear without the express permission of the State. They must not be printed in the German language;

• 24. We demand freedom for all religious denominations in the State, provided they do not threaten its existence not offend the moral feelings of the German race.

• The Party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, but does not commit itself to any particular denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and without us, and is convinced that our nation can achieve permanent health only from within on the basis of the principle: The common interest before self-interest.

• 25. To put the whole of this programme into effect, we demand the creation of a strong central state power for the Reich; the unconditional authority of the political central Parliament over the entire Reich and its organizations; and the formation of Corporations based on estate and occupation for the purpose of carrying out the general legislation passed by the Reich in the various German states.

• The leaders of the Party promise to work ruthlessly -- if need be to sacrifice their very lives -- to translate this programme into action.

THE HITLER MYTH• What did you learn about the German culture?

• Describe this concept of the heroic or Volkisch leader.

• What sort of religious meaning became attached to the concept of ‘heroic leadership’ ?

• Why did the belief in ‘heroic leadership’ migrate from the fringes of early 1920s German society to the mainstream by the mid-30s?

Legal Rise to Power• Hitler uses the notoriety that he has

gained from the putsch and book to reorganize the NSDAP

• In 1925, the Nazis reconvene their rallies

• But, the German economy has gotten back on its feet

• 1925-1929 were ‘lean years’ for the NSDAP

• By 1928, there were less than 100,000 Party members. The Nazis held only 12 of the Reichstag’s 500 members.

• But then something happened…

THE GREAT DEPRESSION BECOMES AN OPPORTUNITY

• Hitler and the Nazis are back in business. In all the Western world, the Depression perhaps hit hardest in Germany.

– 1 in every 3 Germans was unemployed.

– (Q: Why are unemployment figures always inaccurate?)

– William Shirer states, ‘Only when men were hungry and desperate and businessmen and bankers were going broke could Nazism make an appeal to them.’

There was a growing feeling that it was time to give the NSDAP a chance:

-That Hitler was the ‘strong man’ who would end the chaos

-That Communism was a terrifying alternative (for the bourgeoisie and rich industrialists at least)

• Hitler received 30 % and the Nazi Party gained over 40 % of the vote in the 1932 elections—but never had a majority in the Reichstag.

• The majority of German people never voted for Hitler.

But…

THE CONSOLIDATION OF POWER

• But…in 1933, President Von Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor.

Why?

• The SA numbered nearly half a million at this point

• The Reichstag was so fragmented that they had become ineffectual

• The Nazis would not compromise

• Hitler promised to organize a coalition govt

• Von Hindenburg was 85 yrs. old

• From this point it took Hitler only a year and a half to achieve a dictatorship

With another unbelievable stroke of luck:

-The Reichstag mysteriously burns to the ground--van der Lubbe (communist) confesses

-The very next day, Hitler pressures von Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Fire Emergency Decree:

Civil Rights were suspended

-Free Speech, Press, Religion, Right to Assemble, etc

-Persecution of Christians and Jews begins

-First Concentration Camp established for political prisoners (Dachau)

Meanwhile…the SA begins to take over the streets

Dictator• Hitler immediately outlawed all parties

except the NSDAP—eliminating 8 of the 11 members of the Cabinet

• One month after the Reichstag Fire, Hitler proposed the Enabling Act —absolute power for the NSDAP

• 2/3 vote was necessary—but almost all non-Nazi Party members had been jailed or mysteriously disappeared

• There’s just one more problem that needs to be taken care of…

Hitler’s Thugs: Sturmabteilung

• Ernst Rohm in his own words:

• ‘Since I am an immature and wicked man, war and unrest appeal to me more than good order.’

• The S.A. is brutal and undisciplined

-and becomes unmanageable

• S.A. wants to become the German Army and begins calling for a ‘2nd Revolution’—

– the complete Nazification of German society Hitler had promised

• But this creates a political problem for Hitler with the Reichswehr…

So, in 1934, Hitler accuses the S.A. of treason and orders the leadership executed by the elite and loyal S.S. (Schutzstaffel)

The S.S. was Hitler’s private squad of bodyguards that had grown formidable under the command of Heinrich Himmler.

At least 100 prominent S.A. were killed including Rohm.

Over 1,000 were arrested.

The Consolidation of Power was complete…

Hitler was now Fuhrer and ‘Supreme Judge of the German people’.

Hitler’s Cronies

Ernst Rohm—leader of the SA

Rudolph Hess—Hitler’s secretary and Deputy of the Nazi Party

Hermann Goring—head of the German Air Force and creator of the Gestapo

Julius Streicher—publisher of Der Sturmer (the media mouthpiece of the Party)

Joseph Goebbels:-Reichminister of Propaganda -instituted book burnings;-Hitler’s most loyal follower;-father of the ‘Big Lie’

Adolph Eichmann-the architect of the Holocaust

Heinrich Himmler-head of the SS

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a

communist;Then they came for the socialists, and I did

not speak out—because I was not a socialist;

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a

trade unionist;Then they came for the Jews, and I did not

speak out—because I was not a Jew;Then they came for me—and there was no

one left to speak out for me.-Pastor Martin Niemoller

The Roots of Anti-SemitismI. Judaism is an exclusive religion:

-strict observance of ritual law-monotheistic

II. This sets it apart naturally as an outside culture -Jews have often been called ‘strangers’, ‘foreigners’ and ‘barbarians’-Jewish culture is literate, sophisticated and successful-Everything is built around reading and knowing the Torah (Scriptures)-Education tends to produce wealth-Many Jews made careers in banking and business

III. A Brief History of Anti-Semitism

• Anti-Jewish prejudice appeared in the historical record as early as the 4th century B.C. in Greece and Egypt.

• In A.D. 135, the Jewish people were driven from their homeland by the Romans.

• Many Christians claimed that the Jews should be held ‘eternally responsible’ for the death of Jesus– -called them ‘Christ killers’

• The refusal to convert to Christianity was seen as arrogant

III. (Cont’d) Middle Ages

• Horrifying rumors were widely propagated:• ►Blood Libel: accused of using the blood of Christian

babies in their rituals• ►widely blamed for the Black Plague • Forced to wear badges or cones on head• In Italy and Germany, they were separated into ghettos• Central and eastern Europe: – commonly not allowed to own land,

– serve as officers in the military,

– hold positions in state service, and

– generally denied access to handicraftsman and small-manufacturing opportunities

17th-18th Century tensions eased but the stereotypes remained

What was unique about German Anti-Semitism?

• Martin Luther, a great theologian, came to believe that their souls were damned beyond hope

• The belief arose that they were subhuman and without souls

German thinkers misconstrued Darwin’s principle of Natural Selection:

• Social Darwinism—‘survival of the fittest’ applied to the human being

• Nietzsche’s concept of the Ubermensch was widely accepted

• A belief in Volk arose:

• ►a pure tribe of Northern Europeans

• ►The Volk was the Aryan race

• The destiny of the Aryan Volk was to cleanse itself of impure blood!!!