Nazism and the Rise of Hitler

1. Birth of the Weimar Republic

Germany fought the First World War (1914–1918) alongside the Austrian empire and against the Allies (England, France and Russia, later joined by the USA). At first Germany won victories, but the entry of the USA in 1917 helped the Allies win. Germany was defeated. The emperor (Kaiser Wilhelm II) abdicated, and in 1919 a National Assembly met at Weimar and set up a democratic republic. Germany became a federal democracy where deputies were elected to the German Parliament, the Reichstag, on the basis of equal and universal votes, including votes for women. But this new Weimar Republic was born out of defeat, and many Germans blamed it for the humiliating peace that followed.

2. The Treaty of Versailles (1919)

After the war, Germany was forced to sign the harsh Treaty of Versailles. Germany lost its overseas colonies, a tenth of its population, 13% of its territories, 75% of its iron and 26% of its coal to France, Poland, Denmark and Lithuania. The Allied powers demobilised Germany’s army. The War Guilt Clause held Germany responsible for the war and the damage the Allied countries suffered. Germany was forced to pay compensation amounting to a huge £6 billion. The Allied armies also occupied the resource-rich Rhineland in the 1920s. Most Germans felt this treaty was a “dictated peace” — a humiliation forced upon them — and they directed their anger at the new Weimar Republic that had accepted it.

3. Political Radicalism and Economic Crises

The Weimar Republic was unstable from the start. Inspired by the Soviet revolution, workers and revolutionary Spartacist League members rose in revolt, while right-wing groups crushed them with the help of a war veterans organisation called the Free Corps. The Weimar Republic also faced an economic disaster. In 1923 Germany refused to pay the war reparations, and France occupied its leading industrial area, the Ruhr, to claim the coal. Germany printed paper money recklessly. With too much money in circulation, the value of the German mark collapsed — the price of a loaf of bread shot into the millions. This crisis is famous as hyperinflation. Images of Germans carrying cartloads of currency notes to buy bread shocked the world.

4. The Years of Depression

The years 1924–1928 saw some stability, helped by American loans (the Dawes Plan reworked the terms of reparations). But this recovery rested on short-term loans, and it collapsed when the Wall Street Stock Exchange crashed in 1929, starting the worldwide Great Economic Depression. American investors pulled their money out of Germany. National income shrank, factories shut down, exports fell, and farmers were badly hit. By 1932 industrial production was down to 40% of its 1929 level and the number of unemployed touched a staggering 6 million. The middle classes, especially salaried workers and small businessmen, saw their savings disappear. People lost faith in the democratic Weimar system, which seemed unable to solve their problems.

5. Weaknesses of the Weimar Constitution

The Weimar Constitution itself had defects that made the government weak. One was proportional representation, which made it almost impossible for any one party to win a majority, leading to unstable coalition governments. The other was Article 48, which gave the President the power to impose emergency, suspend civil rights and rule by decree. Within its short life the Weimar Republic saw twenty different cabinets, and people lost confidence in democracy. This crisis of governance gave Hitler his opportunity.

6. Hitler’s Rise to Power

Adolf Hitler was born in Austria in 1889. He had fought bravely in the First World War, and Germany’s defeat filled him with rage. In 1919 he joined a small group that he later took over and renamed the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or the Nazi Party. He attempted to seize power in 1923 and was jailed (where he wrote his book Mein Kampf). The Nazis could not become a mass force in the 1920s, but the Great Depression changed everything. Hitler was a powerful speaker who promised to build a strong nation, undo the injustice of Versailles, and restore the dignity of the German people. He promised employment and a secure future for the youth. By 1932 the Nazi Party had become the largest party in the Reichstag with 37% of the votes. On 30 January 1933, President Hindenburg offered Hitler the highest office of Chancellor.

7. The Destruction of Democracy

Once in power, Hitler quickly dismantled democracy. The mysterious Fire in the Reichstag building in February 1933 was used as an excuse. The Fire Decree of 28 February 1933 suspended civic rights like freedom of speech, press and assembly. He then turned on the Communists, his most bitter opponents, and sent them to concentration camps. The famous Enabling Act of 3 March 1933 established Hitler’s complete dictatorship, giving him the power to sideline Parliament and rule by decree. All political parties and trade unions were banned except the Nazi Party. The state took control of the economy, media, army and judiciary. Special police forces — the Gestapo (secret state police), the SS (protection squads), criminal police and the SD (security service) — were given extra-constitutional powers to control society and crush opposition.

8. Nazi Worldview and Racism

Nazi ideas were built on a cruel racial worldview. Hitler believed there was no equality among human beings, only a racial hierarchy. The blond, blue-eyed, Nordic German Aryans were at the top — the “superior race” — while Jews were placed at the lowest rung and seen as the arch-enemies of the Aryans. This drew on the false ideas of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and Herbert Spencer’s idea of “survival of the fittest”, twisted to claim that the strongest race had the right to dominate and that the “weaker” should be destroyed. The second pillar was the idea of Lebensraum, or living space. Hitler argued that Germany needed to acquire new territories, especially in the east (in Poland and Russia), to settle Germans and increase the area of the mother country. This is what drove Germany to attack other nations.

9. The Nazi Cult of Motherhood & Youth

The Nazis took total control of the young to create a loyal generation. Schools were “cleansed” — Jewish and politically unreliable teachers were dismissed, and Jewish children were thrown out. Textbooks were rewritten, racial science was taught, and children were taught to be loyal Nazis and to hate Jews. Outside school, boys joined the youth organisation Jungvolk at ten and the Hitler Youth at fourteen, where they learned to worship war, glorify aggression and obey the Fuhrer. Women were taught that they were very different from men and that their duty was to be good mothers and bear pure-blooded Aryan children. Mothers who produced racially desirable children were awarded honours like the Honour Cross, but women who married Jews or so-called “undesirables” were publicly shamed and punished.

10. Propaganda and the Art of Persuasion

The Nazi regime used propaganda brilliantly to win the minds of the people. They never used the words “kill” or “murder” in official communications; instead they used coded language — mass killings were called “special treatment”, “final solution” (for the Jews), “euthanasia” (for the disabled) and “selection”. Films, radio, posters, catchy slogans and leaflets carried the Nazi message. The most infamous film, The Eternal Jew, was used to spread hatred against Jews, who were stereotyped and mocked. Nazism appealed to all sections of society by promising different things to different groups, deliberately blaming the Jews and the “weak” for all of Germany’s problems.

11. The Nazi Racial State and the Holocaust

Once in power, the Nazis set out to create an exclusive racial community of pure Germans by physically eliminating all those seen as “undesirable”. They wanted only a society of “pure and healthy Nordic Aryans”. Jews were the main targets, but Gypsies (Roma and Sinti), Black people, Russians and Poles were also persecuted, along with Germans who were considered mentally or physically unfit. From 1933 Jews were stripped of their rights, and the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 denied them German citizenship and forbade marriage between Jews and Germans. In November 1938, the night of horror known as the “Night of Broken Glass” (Kristallnacht) saw Jewish homes, shops and synagogues attacked. Jews were forced into segregated areas called ghettos, and finally into concentration and death camps like Auschwitz, where they were gassed to death. This mass murder of about six million Jews is called the Holocaust — one of the greatest crimes in human history. Nazi Germany was finally defeated by the Allies in 1945, after which an international tribunal at Nuremberg tried and punished the Nazi war criminals.