HST 230    Hitler and the Rise of the Nazis

I. The Causes of Hitler's Rise to Power
  A. World War I  [MAP]
        1. the allies defeated Germany and Austria-Hungary by 1918
	2. the war had been unbelievably destructive
		a. trench warfare (British troops in French trenches)
		b. gas warfare (German attack; blinded British soldiers)
		c. air warfare (German planes)
		d. about 16 million dead; about 21 million wounded
		e. an immense amount of property was destroyed
		f. images: "World War One Wasteland"
	3. Paris Peace Conference
		a. treaties with each of the defeated nations
		b. acknowledgment of guilt
		c. payment of reparations
  B. The Treaty of Versailles 
	1. Germany lost territory (Alsace-Lorraine, etc.) [MAP]
	2. German military was left impotent
		a. demilitarized Rhineland [MAP]
		b. no submarines, aircraft or tanks
		c. no draft
		d. volunteer soldiers limited to 100,000
	3. reparations
		a. 132 billion marks
		b. crippled the German economy
  C. Redrawing the Map of Europe [MAP]
	1. the allies wanted large eastern European states
	2. Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland
	3. unhappy ethnic minorities
  D. The Weimar Republic
	1. very modern and very liberal
	2. dominated by the SPD, the Social Democratic Party
	3. greatly offended conservatives and nationalists
	4. disconnected soldiers returning from war
  E. The Russian Revolution(s)
	1. first revolution in early 1917: middle class liberals in the Duma take over
	2. second revolution in late 1917: Bolsheviks take over 
	3. Lenin and the Petrograd soviet [MAP]
		a. differences between Bolshevism and Marxism
		b. no dictatorship of the proletariat; no direct democracy
		c. just heavy-handed, one-party rule
	4. creates a fear of communism throughout Europe 
  F. The Great Depression
	1. origins can be traced to WWI
	2. low prices and high unemployment in the countryside
		while the stock market is booming (the Roaring Twenties)
	3. then, various industries start declining
	4. panic hits the stock market in 1929
	5. Americans pulled their money out of Europe = depression there, too
	6. things were especially bad in Germany
		a. Americans had already been pulling money out of Germany
			to invest in the booming stock market
		b. so the German economy had been falling apart before 1929
		c. the Great Depression pushed it over the edge

II. Hitler
  A. Early Years
        1. born in Austria (Braunau am Inn)  [MAP]
	2. went to Munich just before WWI
	3. volunteered for the Bavarian army
  B. The German Workers' party 
	1. Hitler liked their rhetoric - nationalist, anti-capitalist, anti-Semitic
	2. he joined the party and quickly became leader
	3. changed the name to the National Socialist German Workers' Party
  C. The Nazi Party
	1. the SA (Sturmabteilung - storm squad or storm troopers); brownshirts
		- paramilitary group that used intimidation
	2. a few bumps in the road, but continued to grow in the 1920s
	3. unemployment is skyrocketing; people are frustrated
	4. marginal groups like the Nazis and communists were growing
	5. but the Bolshevik fear pushes more people to the Nazis
	6. became the largest party in Germany; 37% of the vote in 1932
  D. Chancellor of Germany
	1. President Paul von Hindenburg went through several chancellors
		- none could solve the economic problems
	2. in January 1933, he appointed Hitler as chancellor
		a. he thought that bringing in someone from the most popular 
			party would allow him to regain control
		b. he thought that he could push back the communists by
			giving more power to the right
		c. he thought that he and his advisors could control Hitler
  E. The Reichstag Fire
	1. the Reichstag (German parliament) caught fire in February 1933
	2. a communist was caught at the site and admitted that he set the fire
	3. the Nazis claim that a communist revolution is imminent
	4. this allows Hitler and the Nazis to consolidate their power
		a. rights suspended
		b. communists deputies arrested
		c. Enabling Act allows Hitler to bypass the President and Reichstag
	5. fear of a communist revolution keeps people from protesting
  F. Dictator
	1. set up concentration camps
	2. outlawed communist and socialist parties
	3. killed off the opposition in his own party
	4. Hindenburg's death in August 1934 gave him complete control
	5. he used the threat of force to bring everyone in society into line
	6. economic recovery facilitated this
  G. Remilitarization and Appeasement
	1. reinstituted the air force
	2. increased the size of the army
	3. sent troops into the Rhineland (1936)
	4. sent troops into Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland (1938-9)
	5. Lebensraum - living space
	6. appeasement was completely reasonable at the time
		a. no one wanted another war; didn't think Europe could survive it
		b. Chamberlain thought he could simply negotiate away 
			all the issues with Germany (Chamberlain with Hitler)
		c. but this just feeds Hitler's appetite
	7. Poland was the last straw

III. World War II
  A. Blitzkrieg (planes, tanks, and more tanks)
        1. Poland and the east
	2. France and the west
		a. avoided the Maginot Line (fortress)
		b. attacked through the Ardennes forest
		c. occupied northern France
		d. collaborationist government at Vichy in the south
	3. bombed London, but the British kept fighting
  B. Russia 
	1. the Russians were taking more land than Hitler thought they would
	2. Hitler's fatal mistake: invasion of Russia in the summer of 1941
	3. the Germans get bogged down in the war of attrition
	4. in the end, the Russians outlast the Germans

IV. Nazi Ideology
   A. Nazi racial hierarchy
	1. Aryans
		a. Sanskrit for "noble"
		b. referred to ancient Indo-Iranian tribes
		c. today we use the term Indo-European to refer to the languages
			that dominate from India to Europe
		d. in the 19th century, some people thought that the 
			Indo-European homeland was in northern Europe
		e. the Nazis borrowed this idea and argued that Nordic/Germanic
			people were ethnically pure = the master race
		f. they also borrowed the swastika
			- Sanskrit symbol for "good fortune"
	2. sub-humans
		a. Slavs, such as Russians, Serbs, Poles
		b. Gypsies
		c. Jews
	3. racial laws
		a. 1933: non-Aryans expelled from the German civil service
		b. 1935: Jews lost their citizenship; intermarriage banned; job quotas
   B. other undesirables 
	1. teenage rebels, vagrants, homosexuals 
	2. mentally and physically disabled people
   C. Hitler's anti-Semitism
	1. biological in nature
	2. conversion or assimilation of Jews didn't appease him
	3. to him, their existence was tainting German culture

V. Discussion: Nazi Propaganda

Discussion Topics
1. Which aspect of the pageantry at the Nuremberg rally do you think 
was the most effective form of propaganda?
2. Do you think the observer’s comparison of the Nuremberg rally 
to a religious experience is valid?
3. Was the KdF basically a Nazi effort to bribe the masses to look the other 
way?  Or do you think that they were actually trying to win the masses 
over to their cause?
4. Most Germans were not blue-eyed blondes.  What do you think 
they thought about the image of the ideal family in the Aryan poster?
5. What does the existence of racial science classes tell us about 
the German education system at that time?
6. Do you think the birth rate propaganda would have been effective? 
7. What do you think was the most effective form of propaganda: 
Aryan posters, racial science classes, KdF entertainment or Nazi pageantry?
8. Does propaganda play a role in the US today?  Do we have anything 
similar to these Nazi examples?