In 1919, the German assembly met in Weimar to approve of a …



German Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated on November 9, 1918, and a republic was declared. A new socialist government under Friedrich Ebert signed an armistice to end the war. By January 1919, a new democratic constitution was drawn up in the town of Weimar. Because of this, the new government of Germany became known as the Weimar Republic. The Weimar Republic would last from 1919 until 1933. It was during this regime that Adolf Hitler would continue to move up in German politics.

The Weimar Republic could be broken down into three distinct time frames. They are:

• 1919-1924: Time of political and economic chaos and upheavals.

• 1924-1929: Economy doing well and political stability.

• 1929-1933: Time of economic and political chaos.

The political problems facing Germany from 1919-1924 were a result of a flawed constitution and communist uprisings.

|Based on the German constitution, a parliament was to exist. It would be known as the Reichstag. The Reichstag’s main |

|responsibility was to report to the Chancellor of Germany. The constitution also called for a multi-party system. This created |

|the biggest dilemma for Germany because no party could gain control of the majority of the Reichstag. Thus, there was always a |

|weak government in place. |

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|The only way the party in control of the Reichstag could get anything accomplished was to make agreements with other parties. It |

|quickly led to the creation of a coalition government. There were 14 coalitions formed between February 1919 and June 1928. |

The German President was elected for seven-year terms. The president appointed the chancellor who ran the government. In addition, according to Article 48 of the constitution, the President could run the country by offering decrees to prevent the multi-party system from slowing down the progress of the nation. This was known as the “Emergency Decree Power.”

In 1925, the second German president was appointed. This position was given to von Hindenburg. However, by this time, the war-hero was old and becoming senile.

Hindenburg had to fight against the growing number of communists in Germany. Five times the German Communist Party tried to overthrow the government. Lenin encouraged these attempted revolutions. The German military, being so weak from the Treaty of Versailles, could not contain and stop the communists.

|The most famous attempt to overthrow the Weimar Republic was made by an extreme left-wing social movement called the Spartacus |

|League (Sparakusbund). Led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, the Spartacus League was committed to bringing forth a violent |

|revolution. When these attempts failed, the Spartacus League members formed the German Communist Party (KPD) and began to contest |

|Reichstag elections. Because the KPD refused to work with the Social Democratic Party (SPD), this left-wing movement was |

|eventually crushed by the Nazis. |

In an attempt to end the communist risk factor in Germany, the government authorized the creation of a second illegal army called the Freikorp (“Free Corp”). It would be comprised of WWI veterans who were eager to fight against the communists.

The Freikorp soldiers had these three distinct characteristics:

1. They loved war and violence.

2. They were all from the middle class.

3. They were all extreme nationalists.

|The Freikorp was very successful. They crushed the communist movement in Germany and then began to concentrate their efforts to |

|rid (assassinate) the German government of any politician who was associated with the “stab in the back” theory. The Freikorps |

|were responsible for more than 400 political murders. |

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|Fifty thousand of the Freikorp moved to the city of Munich in response to the invitation by Ernst Röhm. Röhm merged the Freikorp |

|with the “German Workers Party.” This right-winged party was founded in Munich in 1919 by Anton Drexler. Without these men, the |

|Nazi party (and Hitler) would never have gotten off the ground. |

The economy of Germany was terrible. There was a runaway inflation. At the end of the war, $1 (US) equaled 4.2 marks (Ger). By December 1923, $1 equaled 4.2 trillion marks. There were two main reasons for the inflationary problem. They were:

1. In 1922, the German government deliberately began printing too much money to weaken the currency. They then proceeded to tell England and France that their inflation was caused by the Germans having to pay reparations.

2. They stopped paying reparations. England told France to forget about the reparations. The French refused to allow the Germans to get away with this. Thus the French seized the Ruhr, which is an industrialized section of the German Rhineland. In response, the German government told the workers not to go to work.

• To appease the workers (who needed the money), the German government promised to take care of them by printing more money for their use. Thus, the idea of a runaway inflation became a reality in Germany.

|The runaway inflation hurt the middle class the most. Hitler would use this to his advantage. |

The German government appointed Gustav Stresemann as Chancellor. He did two important things:

• He asked the French to leave the Ruhr. In return, he promised the French that the Germans would resume paying reparations.

• He threw away the currency and introduced a new currency.

At this time the Germans weren’t working in the factories in the Ruhr. The French sent workers there to open up the factories. To pay these workers, the French had to produce more franks. This led to an inflationary problem in France. Thus, the French realized that England was correct in staying out of Germany.

• From 1924 onwards, France would not take any aggressive actions against Germany unless England fully backed them.

In January 1924, the second phase of the Republic began. This period introduced the Dawes Plan. This economic plan called for:

• It lowered reparations set upon Germany.

• It encouraged American banks to lend money to German cities.

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|American banks began to lend more and more money to Germany. Germany then proceeded to pay England and France their reparations |

|promised to them by Stresemann. England and France then paid back their debts they owed to the United States for money that they |

|borrowed during World War I. It was a giant financial cycle. Thus, when the stock market crashed in 1929, it led to a worldwide |

|great depression. |

Germany was hit the hardest by the depression. In 1932, 45% of Germany’s population was unemployed. During the cruelest days of the depression in the United States, 25% were unemployed.

|Hindenburg stepped into the Reichstag and appointed Heinrich Bruning to run the country. By 1930, democracy was dead in Germany. |

|Bruning raised taxes and lowered government spending. It made the situation worse. |

Hitler was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He went to Vienna to become an artist. It didn’t work out for him. However, while in Vienna, two aspects of his ideology were formed:

1. As a German living in the multi-national empire, Hitler hated the Slovaks. He feared them as well. Hitler called the Slovaks “Untermenschen” (sub-humans). He referred to the Germans as the “Ubermenschen” (super-humans). In addition, he hated the Russians because a large majority of them were Slovaks.

2. The mayor in Vienna was Karl Lueger. He was elected to office by campaigning on the idea that the Jews posed a threat to the Germans living in Vienna. Hitler realized how anti-Semitic the Germans were at that time.

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In 1912, Hitler left Vienna and moved to Munich. Shortly after, World War I began. He quickly enlisted in the German army. During the war, Hitler served as a frontline soldier. He emerged from the war believing that he was the chosen leader for Germany. He would (like Mussolini) transform his wartime nationalistic patriotism into an appeal for revolution.

At the end of the war, Hitler began to examine his nation to determine where they went wrong in the Great War. He realized that Germany was very diverse. Because of this, the toleration of diversity and individualism cost Germany the war. People cared more about themselves rather than their nation, and non-Germans living in Germany were the greatest culprits of this. Thus, Hitler scorned human rights and glorified national solidarity.

|By 1919, the war had ended and Hitler had no formal education. He wanted to join a political party that was small. Thus, he found|

|the German Workers Party as the ideal party for him. The party was associated with conservatives, middle-class values and |

|institutions. |

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|Hitler grew within the party and quickly acquired more power. He soon became the leader of the party and decided to change the |

|name of the party to the National Socialists German Workers Party (NSDAP). The proper name for his movement is National Socialism |

|(Nazi- National Socialism). There was nothing socialist about his party. The party only promised national strength and unity. It|

|is now clear that Hitler was strictly a fascist. |

Nazism was unique. It made racism a central feature of its ideology. Above all, anti-Semitism was the driving force behind the party. In addition, the Nazis believed that the restoration of German might in Europe was the first step towards world power. No other fascist regime turned nationalism into conquest.

The Nazi Party grew because:

1. Hitler was a great orator.

2. Hitler came up with events that incited the emotions of the Germans.

3. Hitler received much needed help from Röhm. Röhm contacted the Freikorp and had them join the party. He put them in a branch called the S.A. (Stormtroopers). They wore brown shirts. The S.A. did three things:

a. They provided physical protection for Hitler (200-400 people were killed a year in Germany because of political wars).

b. They were ordered to cause problems at other political meetings.

c. As a member of the S.A. it was required that each member perform “good boy scout-like” deeds. This gave the image to the general public that the S.A. was comprised of good, honest men.

|After the creation of the S.A., Hitler added an elite group of bodyguards dressed in black uniforms called the “Schutzstaffel” |

|(S.S.). He demanded of the SS a loyalty greater than that of any soldier in the German army. By 1932, the S.S. had 800,000 |

|members and the S.A. had 500,000 members. |

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Hitler knew he was the chosen leader of the Nazi Party as well as Germany. At one party rally, a supporter yelled out, “Hitler is the People, the People is Hitler.”

Finally, in 1923, Hitler tried to seize power of the government. This event was known as the “Beer Hall Putsch.” Hitler went into the hall and took over the meeting. The next day, he went down to the city hall. They opened fire on him. The results were:

1. Hitler was so shocked by all of this that he would never try to seize power again by force.

2. His trial was covered by all of the media in Germany. Thus, the Nazi Party received free publicity. Hitler pleaded guilty of leading an attempted coup.

3. Hitler was sentenced to the minimum sentence of five years due to a sympathetic right-wing jury. In reality, Hitler served just nine months in jail (Landsberg Fortress). While sitting in his cell, he wrote Mein Kampf (“My Struggles”). It contained his ideology and blueprints of what he would do when he comes to power.

Hitler’s Mein Kampf called for the following:

1. Remove all enemies in Germany. For Hitler, enemies were usually Jews, communists, and November Criminals (those men who overthrew the Kaiser and anyone who supported the Weimar government). There were 72 million citizens in Germany. Only 250,000 were Jews.

2. Germany must tear up the restrictions made by the Treaty of Versailles. They must:

a. Rebuild the military.

b. Remilitarize the Rhineland.

c. Pay no more reparations.

3. Expand Germany’s borders. This became known as the Pan-Germanic Dream. Hitler was referring to Austria, the Sudetenland (northwest Czechoslovakia), and the Polish Corridor.

4. Hitler called for Lebensraum (living space). He was referring to Poland and Ukraine. He wanted to conquer these areas because:

a. Germans believed that God wanted them to move east. This theory is known as Drang nach Osten (Drive towards the East).

b. Hitler wanted these areas back from Brest-Litovsk.

c. The Poles and Ukrainians are Slovaks.

d. By controlling the Ukraine, communism is severely weakened.

e. Most of the world’s Jews lived in Poland and Ukraine.

In 1925, Hitler was released from jail. Three years later (1928), there was an election for the Parliament. The Nazis’ received 12 seats out of 500.

When the depression hits Germany, the Communist party gains more supporters. To combat this movement, Hitler joined the DNVP (Deutschnationale Volkspartei) in campaigns against the 1929 Young Plan. By the end of that year, the Nazi membership had risen to 178,000.

|In 1932, Hitler’s party had 230 seats. The Nazis received one-third of all German votes. At that time, this was now the largest |

|party in Germany (the Communism Party received 17% of the votes). By the end of 1932, Hitler had peaked. He realized that he had |

|to make a strong political move at that moment or else he might miss his opportunity. He began to feel desperate. Hitler knew |

|that President Hindenburg was senile and that he relied on the people he trusted, including army generals and conservative |

|aristocrats. Personally, Hindenburg despised Hitler. |

In June 1932, Franz von Papen became the Chancellor of Germany when Bruning resigned. In November, Papen was fired for failing to get a majority of the Germans to support Hindenburg/Papen’s government. The Reichstag was becoming hostile towards Papen and he contemplated using the army as a way to force the government to write a new constitution. Pape was eventually replaced by General Kurt von Schleicher, the Minister of Defense, who was opposed to military intervention in the Reichstag. Von Schleicher hoped to lure some of the more liberal Nazis into the government.

There were tremendous political maneuverings going on around President Hindenburg.

|Papen was furious with Schleicher. He believed that the General was the reason for his dismissal from the Chancellorship. Thus, |

|Papen was committed to putting Hitler in Schleicher’s position. Before Schleicher was fired, Papen began to acquire financial |

|support for the Nazi Party. With the firing of Schleicher, Papen forced the senile Hindenburg to give the Chancellorship to |

|Hitler. |

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|Papen convinced Hindenburg that by promoting Hitler, the Nazis would quite down. Other generals and aristocrats felt that they |

|could manipulate Hitler just as they had manipulated Hindenburg. They were wrong. |

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|Thus, on January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was sworn in as the Chancellor of Germany. The Republic was now bordering on Nazism. |

The German people seemed to embrace Nazism with relative ease for a few reasons. They were:

1. The labor unions suffered in the depression and but were unwilling to launch a massive strike movement for the overthrow of the Weimar leadership. Nazism offered a completely new direction for the lagging nation to turn towards. Workers were attracted by promises of work through interventionist economic polices. This was viewed as a “third-way” to run the economy between extreme laissez-faire by the right-wing politicians and full government control by the extreme left-wing communists. The unions were correct. When finally, in full control, the Nazis rejuvenated the German economy and began to bring back a nationalistic flare to the citizens.

2. The lower middle classes, self-employed shopkeepers and craftsmen saw National Socialism as protecting their traditional place within the economic structure, while the small farmers welcomed the promise of controls on prices, the reduction of imports, and financial controls to protect those in debt.

3. The upper classes embraced Nazism because they viewed it as the only way to slow down the Marxist movement taking place in Germany.

4. The military, sworn to serve the Republic, believed their loyalties lay with the President. When Hindenburg gave the position of Chancellor to Hitler, no series of protests were made by the generals.

By the end of 1933, while technically still a constitutional democracy, the S.A. and the S.S. began to intimidate and terrorize Nazi opponents at will.

Using his powers as Chancellor, Hitler dissolved the Reichstag and called for new elections in March. The Berlin building that housed the Parliament was set ablaze in late February. Hitler blamed the Communists and persuaded the President to grant him powers “for the protection of the people and the state.” With this new, increased authority, Hitler:

• Suspended individual liberties, including freedom of press and assembly.

• Passed the Enabling Act, granting the Cabinet (Hitler) the power to rule without constitutional restraints. This made Hitler a virtual dictator.

|In July 1933, all political parties were outlawed aside from the Nazis. The country became a one-party dictatorship. |

The only group not to come under the control of the Nazis was the military. The officers remained loyal to Hindenburg. Röhm, still leading the S.A., ordered his Stormtroopers to kill the military officers. This purge made Röhm one of the Party’s most powerful leaders. Röhm had voiced his ambitions to place himself at the head of a merged SA and army. Hitler knew he had to watch Röhm closely.

Hitler knew Hindenburg was close to death. Thus, Hitler supported the army in their opposition to Röhm. He promised the generals an expanded army and protection from reform. Hence, Hitler became Röhm’s enemy.

|Hitler could not afford to upset the army, whose loyalty he needed. Since the army and the SA did not respect each other, Hitler |

|decided that the SA was expendable. He ordered Heinrich Himmler (Head of the SS) and Hermann Goering to spread rumors of a planned|

|coup by the SA. In response to these “rumors,” in June 1934, SS squads seized and executed over 70 political leaders whom Hitler |

|wanted eliminated, including Röhm and other SA officers. Hitler justified the executions by claiming that he made the law and had |

|acted on behalf of the German people at a time of emergency. Quickly, Hitler gained credit for his “heroic” action. This event |

|was known as the “Night of the Long Knives.” |

On August 2, 1934, Hindenburg died. Hitler proclaimed himself head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

Behind a governmental façade and an integral part of the Nazi Party was the infamous Schutzstaffel (SS). The SS was comprised of political leaders within the Party who would serve Hitler without question in an absolute fashion. In 1934, the SS supplanted the SA and became the most powerful and repressive faction behind the Nazis.

• Heading the SS from 1929-1945 was Heinrich Himmler. Himmler helped to establish the Gestapo (the secret police), the Waffen-SS (the military division of the SS), and the SS-Totenkopf (Death’s Head). Because of the importance of the SS, Himmler became one of the most important and feared men in Germany.

|Hitler now had the men in place to issue a new empire, the “Third Reich.” According to Hitler, the Third Reich would last for |

|1,000 years. |

One of Hitler’s first tasks as Chancellor was to set up a new Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda. Headed by Joseph Goebbels, the ministry controlled the press through censorship and by allowing the Nazi publishing house, Eher Verlag, to buy up private newspapers. By 1939, it controlled nearly two-thirds of the press.

• The Nazis also used the radio as a medium for reinforcing Nazi rule. The radio waves were controlled by the Reich Broadcasting Corporation and was broadcasted throughout the country.

The Nazis were committed to transforming German society. They wanted to change the way in which people behaved and thought by imposing a new concept of Volksgemeineschaft. This was an attempt to create a “national community.” Some of the changes that they brought forth included:

• Volksgemeineschaft was based on blood and race. The “Volk” was made up of racially pure Aryans. Nationalism should unite the people.

• The ideal German was the German peasant farmer (approximately 29% of the working population), whose life was dependent on the German soil and their background was in a traditional way of life.

• Women were expected to fulfill their traditional role as mothers and housewives. To encourage motherhood, tax breaks were given to large families and “unproductive marriages” could be ended by the government.

|The role of women changed drastically as World War II raged on. Women were forced to abandon their housewife responsibilities and |

|were needed to work in the factories to make wartime supplies. |

• Hans Schemm, the leader of the Nazi Teachers’ League, said, “those who have youth on their side control the future.” Thus, by 1936 membership of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth or HJ) became mandatory. The Hitler Youth was divided into different groups based on sex and age (6-18 years old for boys and 10-21 years old for girls). The organization had two basic aims:

• To train the boys for war—There were activities and competitions to bond the boys together yet penalize the weak or uncommitted members. Honor, discipline, and self-sacrifice were promoted.

• To train the girls for motherhood.

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• In education, biology, history and the German language became the means of promoting the Nazi philosophy, while religious education was removed from the curriculum. In biology class, racial differences and Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest were emphasized. History was used to promote a “sense of responsibility towards ancestors” and there was an emphasis put on folklore.

• At the university level, new subjects such as genetics, racial theory, folklore, military studies and the Germany borderlands geography were introduced.

• The Nazis despised modern art. They preferred traditional art that emphasized “blood and soil.” These pieces of art would highlight the pure peasant farmer of the Aryan race. In addition, traditional art was often, anti-feminist, anti-Semitic, and reflected the old way of life. In 1933, Joseph Goebbels ordered the “burning of the books” which destroyed works associated with Jews, Bolsheviks, and any other group viewed as “un-German.”

|Approximately 58% of the German population identified themselves as a Protestant. Catholics make up 32% of the population. While |

|Catholics were a minority, Hitler knew he had to maintain some relationship with the Catholic Church. |

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|In 1933, the Concordat was signed. The Concordat stated that the Vatican recognized the Nazi party as the ruling party of Germany |

|and promised not to interfere in politics. In return, the German government promised not to interfere with the Catholic Church, |

|which would keep control over its education, youth and communal organizations. |

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|Between 1933-1939, the Nazis kept trying to go back on their promise. They used propaganda to encourage anti-Catholic feelings. |

|The working relationship between the Vatican and the German government came to an end in 1937 when Pope Pius XI issued the |

|encyclical, With Burning Anxiety, attacking Nazi beliefs. This was smuggled into Germany and read in Catholic churches. The Nazis|

|responded by shutting down virtually all Catholic schools. |

With the new empire, came the beginning of an increasingly oppressive regime.

• 1933- People of the Jewish faith were denied any position in the German government. In that same year, the Nazis introduced a new law ordering the sterilization of those suffering from certain hereditary illnesses. Between 1934-1945, around 350,000 people were sterilized.

|There were approximately 500,000 German Jewish citizens which made up less than 1% of the nation’s population. |

• 1935- The Nuremberg Laws were passed. These laws stated that all Germans with at least three Jewish grandparents lost their German citizenship. Interfaith marriages became illegal. This led to the removal of more members of the Jewish community from towns and cities. Signs were posted claiming “Judenrein” (Free of Jews).

• 1938- Over 100,000 members of the Jewish faith emigrated. More moved after Kristallnacht (Crystal Night), during which ninety-one people were killed and all Jewish synagogues were burned.

• 1939- The Nazis introduced the euthanasia program. By 1945, 5,000 children had been murdered by injection or forced starvation. By the time the program ended in 1941, over 72,000 people were murdered.

|According to German historian Martin Broszat, Nazi policies grew more extreme because party leaders were constantly trying to go |

|one step further to please or impress Hitler. This confusion fitted with Hitler’s ideological belief in the survival of the |

|fittest. He encouraged competition and it always left Hitler an option if things did not go as originally planned. |

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