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Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich Section 20.104
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Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

Jan 04, 2016

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Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich. Section 20.104. The Rise of Adolf Hitler. Born 1889 Not an intellectual (like Mussolini before WWI) Never a socialist Father was Austrian customs officials Died when Hit was 14 Mother passed soon after Dropped out of HS at 16 - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Page 1: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

Section 20.104

Page 2: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

The Rise of Adolf Hitler• Born 1889• Not an intellectual (like Mussolini

before WWI)• Never a socialist• Father was Austrian customs

officials• Died when Hit was 14• Mother passed soon after• Dropped out of HS at 16• Attempted to get into Academy of

Fine Arts in Vienna but rejected• A drifter, postcard painter

Page 3: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

Hitler’s Dislikes•  In Vienna he developed a hatred for:

– the Habsburg court, snobby nobility, Mixed (Hybridization) nationalities, Leftist (Marxism) leanings of Austrian workers, Jews (who had risen to prominent positions in the liberal government and assimilated into German culture)

• Extremely race conscious and prided himself (incorrectly) as a pure German (Aryan)

• Also hated Capitalism, Socialism, Internationalism

Page 4: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

Nazi Origins• Moved to Munich in 1913, capital of

Bavaria• Volunteered for German army• Served as dispatch runner to front line• Victim of gas attack and was

temporarily blinded and unable to speak• Only rose to corporal but was awarded

military medals• Viewed was as thrilling, noble,

liberating• War gave Hit a sense of purpose, a

higher cause• Peace was boring

Page 5: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich
Page 6: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

Nazi Origins Continued• Munich of 1919 was hotbed of socialist and

anti socialist activity

• Bavarian Soviet Republic last only 3 weeks

• Secret societies and paramilitary organizations led by discontented army officers agitated

• Hitler at the army behest joined the small party called the German Workers’ party and became its leader

– Was urged to join as a way of combating socialist and democratic propaganda among vets and workers

• Nazis (from the German way of pronouncing 1st 2 syllables of National

Page 7: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

Treaty of Versailles

Page 8: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich
Page 9: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

Weimar’s Failure to Democratize• Government born cursed• Versailles, peace, reparations, hyperinflation of

1923• Did not inaugurate deep social changes that may of

democratized German society• Communist and more dangerous monarchist and

antirepublican armed bands threatened – Kapp putsch of 1920– Murdered Walter Rathenau in 1922

• Had organized German production during eh war and was foreign minister

• Democratic and Jewish– Matthias Erzberger, moderate of Catholic

Center party who had “stabbed” the army in the back by signing Versailles

• Brownshirts (or Stormtroopers) was one of these private armies

Page 10: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

The “Beer Hall Putsch”• French army occupied the Ruhr in

1923 to collect reparations• Germans were indignant• Hitler and the Nazis denounced

Weimar for its weakness and tried to seize power

• Used the “March to Rome” as their model

• Beer hall putsch in Munich• Hitler gave impassioned speech on

platform of a beer hall (fired gun into ceiling)– Said “national revolution has

broken out”– Quickly suppressed by the police– Hitler sentenced to 5 years (only

served 1)

Page 11: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich
Page 12: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

Mein Kampf• My Struggle• Stream of personal recollections,

racism, nationalism, collectivism, historical interpretation, anti-Semitism, politics

• Sold widely• Book + 5 week trial put Hitler in jail;

gave him national prominence• Supported by General Ludendorff• Nazis lost their steam as Dawes Plan

fueled economic revival• But in ’29 the Great Depression hit

and the lunatic fringe put Hitler in stratosphere of Napoleon

Page 13: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

The Crisis Confronting Germany

• Germany was hardest hit by GD• Foreign loans stopped or recalled• Unemployment = 6 million• Middle class (still reeling from ’23) lost

faith in government and economy• Communist gained ground• Middle class looked for an alternative to

Bolshevism• Hatred and blame placed on Versailles• Democracy itself (ideology that wholly

satisfied none and crushed none) seemed foreign and un-German

Page 14: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich
Page 15: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

Hitler’s Propaganda• Stirred resentment against Versailles,

Weimar democracy

• Called for true democracy of the Volk

• Lumped all Leftist together and claimed that his was the true socialism

• Denounced war profiteers, big business

• Denounced Jews (only 600 thousand in all Germany) & played on nation’s lowest common denominator

• 1930= Won 107 seats in Reichstag

• 6.5 million voted for them

• 7/1932= had 230 seats (far from a majority)

• Main political rival were the communists

– Had 100 seats in 11/’32

Page 16: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich
Page 17: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

Hitler Named Chancellor• Conservatives (Rhineland steel magnates,

industrialist, nationalists, aristocrats, Junkers, army officers) believed that they could use and control Hitler– In spite of his anti-capitalistic ranting– Franz von Papen and General Kurt von

Schleicher (both had lost chancellorships) prevailed upon President Paul von Hindenburg to name Hitler chancellor of a coalition cabinet

– 1/30/1933 Hitler legally became chancellor of German Republic

– Hitler’s call for new elections were halted as a mysterious fire burned down the Reichstag building

– Nazis blamed the Communists – Red Scare used as excuse to suspend freedom of

speech, press– Brownshirts frightened population– With the backing of Nationalist the Nazis had 52

of the votes and gave Hitler dictatorial powers (national emergency)

Page 18: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich
Page 19: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

The Nazi State• Hit called new order the Third Reich

– 1st was Holy Roman Empire– 2nd empire of Bismarck– Said the 3rd was outgrowth and natural

historical culmination and would last 1 thousand years

• Took title of Leader (Fuhrer)• Claimed to embody the sovereignty of the

German people• Democracy, parliamentarianism,

liberalism were labeled as Jewish and therefore un-German

• Classified anyone with one Jewish grandparent as Jewish

• Drove them from public office, civil service, teaching

Page 20: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

Anti-Semitism• Nuremberg laws of 1935 deprived them of

citizenship and forbade intermarriage• Kristallnacht (11/9/38) “night of broken

glass”• A 17 year old Polish Jewish student

assassinated a German diplomat in Paris• Storm troopers smashed and looted

Jewish stores, synagogues and beat up thousands

• 30 thousand were sent off to concentration camps

• Government issued Billion mark fine of the Jewish community for provoking the assault and collected the insurance payments for property damage

• US and Europe closed their doors to those who wanted to flee Germany

Page 21: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich
Page 22: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

Coordinating German Society• Totalitarian state eliminated other parties, old states (Prussia,

Bavaria)• Nazi party purged itself (6/30/34)• Old Brownshirts were accused of plotting against Hitler and

were executed• Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei) was a secret political police who

with the People’s Courts suppressed decent and imprisoned thousands in concentration camps

• Church leaders under state control• Old Teutonic gods were resurrected & worshipped• Nazi Youth Movement & schools indoctrinated new generation• National Labor Front replaced labor unions• “leadership principle” set up employers as mini- Fuhrers• Public works projects eliminated unemployment• Strength Through Joy subsidized low incomes with paid

vacations, entertainment

Page 23: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

Economic Autarky and Self-Sufficiency• Four Year Plan (1936)• Other nations in the Great Depression

followed policy of economic nationalism• But Nazis sought complete independence

from foreign trade• Chemist developed artificial rubber

(Buna), plastics, synthetic textiles • Planned to eliminate trade barriers

(tariffs) by relegating neighboring countries to dependence on Germany products or by conquering them outright

• Germany was transformed into a war machine with Hitler viewed as a savior

• “Today Germany, tomorrow the whole world.”

Page 24: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich
Page 25: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

Totalitarianism: Some Origins and Consequences

• Term 1st used by Mussolini but his regime was not as all encompassing to merit it

• 1st appeared in Bolshevik Revolution

• Appearance after WWI was not a historical accident

• State had been gathering power since the Middle Ages, assumed jurisdiction over law courts, armies, taxes, religion, economic activity, education, infrastructure

• 20th century totalitarian state was monolithic and insinuated itself on all aspects of life

Page 26: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

Reliance on Historic Nationalism• Tot greatly exaggerated historic nationalism• Rejected individualism (liberalism)• Promoted organic theory of society• The state was a living organism and the individual

was a cell• The individual had no independent existence but

received life from the nation (state)• Individual “reason” or “freedom” or opinions

were meaningless• Claimed that event science was different

– Nazi science v Bourgeoisie science– Soviets dialectic materialism v capitalistic

science• Ideas of truth, beauty, morality were determined

by the people– Enlightenment concepts of natural law, reason,

unalienable rights, progress of mankind were gone

Page 27: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich
Page 28: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

Propaganda• Totalitarian regimes sought to shape

people’s minds• Had existed but now became total• Formerly ideas were suppressed via

censorship of books, people• Tot manufactured thought• Manipulated opinion and rewrote history• Books, newspapers encouraged whole

ideologies• Loudspeakers blared in streets• Billboard size posters of the Fuhrer

appeared everywhere• Constant repetition fostered the belief in

the most fantastic rubbish• People actually began to lose ability to use

reason

Page 29: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich
Page 30: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

Racism• Defined the nation in a tribal sense (a biological

entity) with people sharing a common ancestry• Anti-Semitism was present since the Middle

Ages but Nazis Anti-Sem had nothing to do with religion

• Jews had risen to prominent positions• Propagandist used Jews as a means of getting

“racial pure” forget real problems of poverty, unemployment

• Made differences b/t rich and poor seem unimportant

• Blamed problems on “outside” forces and placed dictator up as indispensable unifier of all classes– Trotskyism, imperialism, international Jewry

• Blamed economic disparities on other countries and made war seem like a solution for social ills

Page 31: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

The Glorification of Violence• Use and glorification of violence is

most glaring difference b/t democracies and Tot

• The cult of violence (struggle) emerged before WWI and was nurtured by war

• Bolsheviks used war to gain power• Muss used the threat of Revolution to

seize power• 1920s in most civilized nations of

Europe private armies marched, bullied, and murdered with impunity

• By 1930 torture would return

Page 32: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

The Cult of the Body• Ethically it was violent and neopagan• Distorted Nietzsche's philosophy which

called for people to get off their laurels and live dangerously

• Hitler Youth• Played on the juvenile idea that by

joining a group, wearing a uniform, and exercising in the outdoors the nation would be rise

• Body Cult= Physical toughness, procreation were encouraged

• Euthanasia was adopted to rid the ill, aged and insane

• Eugenics were used to explain apparent differences b/t the races and rationalize the extermination of lesser races

Page 33: Totalitarianism: Germany’s Third Reich

The Spread of Dictatorship• 1938 only 10 of 27 European nations remained democratic

– Included GB, Fran, Holland, Bel, Swit, Czech, Fin, Den, Nor, Swed

• Why?

• Weak democratic traditions + Poor education + power of reactionaries + Red Scare + discontented national minorities + economic depression

• Generic fascism emerged in Portugal, Spain, Latin America

– Strong central leader, Military supported government, One party systems, repressed individual liberties, abolishment of parliamentary institutions

• Corporative state organization

– Outlawing labor organization

• Acceptance and glorification of violence

• War was a noble thing

• Love a peace a sign of decadence

• Recurrent international crises paved the way to war in ‘39