Humanities II



Humanities II (Honors) The Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazis

I. The Weimar Republic (1918-1933):

A. Troubled beginnings:

1. The German republic:

Fall 1918: German revolution forms a German Republic, dominated by moderate socialists and supported by the labor unions, and forces Kaiser William II to abdicate. Friedrich Ebert becomes chancellor.

November 11, 1918: Armistice with the Allies, which was advocated by German generals, who knew that the War was lost.

2. Threat from the left:

January 1919: German _____________________ party (=Spartacists), going against their leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, tried to depose chancellor Ebert in Berlin. They also set up brief “_____________________” republics in Munich, Baden, and Brunswick.

Ebert calls on the volunteer ____________ ____________ of ex-soldiers to crush the Communist revolutionaries, and _____________________ Luxemburg and Liebknecht.

3. Threat from the right:

The Kapp Putsch (=coup d’état): The Free Corps marched on Berlin, and declared the nationalist Wolfgang Kapp head of the German government. (They really wanted _____________________ _____________________ back.)

The Kapp Putsch was collapsed by a general _____________________ by the labor unions, which supported _____________________.

B. Difficulties of the Weimar Republic:

1. Events:

February 1919: German National Assembly meets in _____________________, and draws up a _____________________.

After WWI, the German _____________________ was in a shambles. The situation was made worse by the war _____________________ Germany had to pay to the Allies.

The German government responded to this crisis by printing more _____________________, causing the German mark to fall by 1923 to around one _____________________ of its value in 1919.

The massive _____________________ caused Germany to _____________________ on its war reparations.

January 1923: In response to Germany’s default, _____________________ Premier Raymond Poincaré, orders France to occupy the Ruhr valley, the heart of German _____________________.

German _____________________ engage in passive resistance to the French occupation, _____________________ to work for the French. The German government was further impoverished by having to _____________________ striking workers.

August 1923: Gustav Stresemann becomes German chancellor. He issued a new _____________________, and refused to print more money after it was first issued. This eased _____________________.

1924: The _____________________ Plan reduced Germany’s reparations by basing them on what it could _____________________ to pay, and France _____________________ its troops from the Ruhr valley.

1924-1929: The German economy _____________________, supported by American investments.

2. Basic weaknesses of the Weimar Republic:

The Weimar Republic had _____________________ support, even during good economic times.

Germany never had a _____________________ government until 1918. (The _____________________ had controlled the military, _____________________ policy, the chancellor, and _____________________.)

The _____________________ class had no interest in _____________________, fearing the rule of an uninformed and easily manipulated “_____________________”.

The _____________________ class was nationalistic, anti-_____________________, and blamed the Weimar Republic for Germany’s _____________________ in WWI and the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles.

Germany’s many political _____________________ could not govern on their own, and had to form unstable _____________________.

II. Adolf Hitler (1889-1945):

A. Hitler’s early years:

1889: Hitler was born in Graz, Austria, to a lower-middle class family.

Through 1908: He was a poor student who twice applied unsuccessfully to the Vienna Academy of ___________ ___________.

1907-1913: In Vienna he became attracted to the Pan-_____________________ movement of Georg von Schonerer. He earned money by painting picture postcards in _____________________.

1913-1918: Hitler moved to _____________________, Germany, and later volunteered for the _____________________ army in WWI.

During WWI, he was twice awarded the Iron Cross for _____________________.

He _____________________ Germany’s losing the War and the humiliating Treaty of Versailles, and regarded the Weimar Republic as the “November _____________________”.

He came to believe that there was a Jewish-Bolshevik _____________________ behind Germany’s defeat; this intensified his vehement anti-Semitism, anti-Marxism, and anti-_____________________ views.

1919: Hitler joined the German Workers’ Party, a right-wing _____________________ group, and named it the Nazionalisozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German _____________________ Party), or Nazis.

Hitler was an extremely successful _____________________ who could play on the _____________________ and desires of his audience.

November 1923: _____________________ Hall Putsch: Hitler tries unsuccessfully to seize power in Munich. Ironically, this failed Putsch _____________________ Hitler’s political career.

-He became a national _____________________ during his trial and 9-month imprisonment.

-He learned that he would have to seize power through _____________________ political means, not through a _____________________ revolution.

-While in jail, he wrote Mein Kampf (=My _____________________), in which he voiced his extreme views and his hopes for German greatness. These included:

-_____________________ nationalism: true Germans are Aryans, a supposed ancient race that is superior to all others, especially _____________________, who are viewed as an inferior race bent on _____________________ the world.

-Rejection of both _____________________ and the Enlightenment, believing that the Aryans would triumph over all other races, defeating both _____________________ and _____________________ along the way.

B. The Nazis seize power:

November 1929: The Great _____________________ begins with the crash of the American stock market.

By 1933, _____________________ Germans had lost their jobs.

Hitler _____________________ this economic crisis, playing on people’s fears: German _____________________ supported the Nazis because they believed they would support the _____________________ industry, and fight Communism and organized _____________________. The major industrial financier of the Nazis was Fritz Thyssen, who controlled the New York-based Union Banking Corporation, which was a clearing house for a number of his enterprises and assets, including the Consolidated Silesian _____________________ Corporation, which after mid-1940 used prison labor from the Auschwitz _____________________ camp. (The _____________________ Congress seized UBC on October 20, 1942, under authority of the Trading with the _____________________ Act. Incidentally, Prescott Bush, President George W. Bush’s _____________________, was a managing director and stockholder of UBC, and eventually received $_____________________ for liquidating his stock. Source: Polish Newsweek: ) German _____________________ supported the Nazis because they believed Hitler would end the _____________________ crisis.

1930: The Nazis received ___________ out of 647 seats in the German parliament (Reichstag).

1932: The Nazis received ___________ seats in the Reichstag. Franz von Papen resigned after only 8 months as chancellor, and persuaded German President Paul von Hindenberg (r.1926-1934) to appoint _____________________ as chancellor.

January 30, 1933: Hitler becomes chancellor.

February 1933: A Dutch communist (possibly prompted by the Nazis) sets _________________ to the Reichstag, the German Parliament building. Hitler suspends _____________________ and arrests leftist (=Communist and Social Democratic) members of _____________________.

March 1933: Nazis received _________ seats in the Reichstag. With the Communists and Social Democrats in ____________, the Nazis gain a slight _____________________ in parliament.

C. The Nazis in power:

1. Hitler as Führer:

The Nazis quickly transformed the government into a one-_____________________ state with Hitler as supreme _____________________.

Hitler called his regime the “Third Reich” (=Third _____________________).

First German Reich: begun by Charlemagne in _____________, later became the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Dissolved by _____________________ in 1806.

Second German Reich: begun in 1871 by Bismarck and William I (r. 1871-1888) at the end of the Franco-Prussian War. Ended in 1918 with the revolution in Germany that ousted William II (r. 1888-1918), and Germany’s defeat by the Allies in WWI.

Third (“Thousand-Year”) Reich: begun in 1933 by Hitler; ended in 1945 with Germany’s defeat in WWII.

Hitler assumes the role of Führer (= “_____________________”), the absolute dictator who must be obeyed at all costs. He secures his popularity by staging huge Nazi _____________________, full of singing, _____________________, and military marches.

2. The 3 most important Nazi officials were:

a. Joseph Goebbels:

Minister of Public Enlightenment and _____________________, controlling the press, _____________________, theatre, and film. He invented the “Hitler _____________________”, which regarded Hitler as a _____________________ leader with almost _____________________ powers.

b. Hermann Göring:

_____________________ in command of the Nazi hierarchy, and would have been Hitler’s _____________________.

1923: leader of the Sturmabteilung (S.A. = Storm Troopers = “Brown Shirts”), established in 1921 as the private _____________________ of the Nazi Party.

1933: Became head of the Ministry of Aviation, and rebuilt Germany’s _____________________ (Luftwaffe – until 1935 under the guise of “air sport clubs”).

c. Heinrich Himmler:

Was the chief of _____________________ for all of Germany.

From 1929 onwards, he led the S.S. (Schutzstaffeln, or “_____________________ corps” = “_____________________ shirts”), organized in 1925 as an elite branch of the Nazi _____________________ to protect Nazi party officials.

Himmler was also responsible for establishing _____________________ camps and exterminating Jews.

Himmler was also head of the Gestapo (the Geheime Staatspolizei, or _____________________ state police), formed in 1933 and after 1936 a branch of the S.S.

Through the Gestapo, the Nazis controlled both Protestant and Catholic _____________________ (by _____________________, banning clergymen from speaking, controlling theological seminaries, and arresting church critics of the Nazis).

3. Major events under Nazi rule:

1933: Hitler begins building the famous German Autobahnen (federal _____________________), which employed many workers and strengthened German _____________________.

May 1933: Nazis seized control of the schools and _____________________, expelling Jewish and _____________________ professors and burning _____________________ considered a threat to Nazi ideology.

October 1933: Germany _____________________ from the League of Nations over the issue of remilitarization.

June 29-30, 1934: Night of the Long _____________________: Bowing to the fears by the regular _____________________ (Reichswehrmacht) that it would be absorbed into the Nazi Party’s S.A., Hitler has the S.S. execute its _____________________, including its _____________________ -wing leader (1931-4), Captain Ernst Röhm.

January 1935: the Saar Valley votes to become reunited with Germany.

Hitler Youth: a Nazi version of the ________ _____________ for boys from 10 to 18.

March 1935: Hitler declares that Germany is no longer _____________________ by the Versailles treaty; Hitler reintroduces universal _____________________ service, and begins to remilitarize Germany, including building a navy and __________ ___________. All of this was in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, but was also a huge boost to the German _____________________.

Fall 1935: Nuremberg Laws deprived _____________________ of political rights: forbade _____________________ intercourse between Jews and non-Jews; no German woman under 45 could be employed in a Jewish household.

March 1936: German troops occupy the demilitarized _____________________.

Late 1936: Rome-Berlin _____________________ links Germany and Italy.

March 1938: the Anschluß: Germany annexes _____________________.

November 7, 1938: a deranged 17-year-old _____________________ assassinates a German official in Paris.

November 9, 1938: The Nazis retaliate with the Kristallnacht (=The Night of Broken _____________________): _____________ synagogues and many Jewish businesses were burned down. _____________________ Jews were placed in concentration camps.

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