Life in Germany



LIFE IN GERMANY

Mein Kampf (My Struggle) – Hitler’s Book

|Fascism - term was applied by Mussolini to his movement after his rise to power in 1922. The Fascists were viciously |

|anti-Communist and anti- liberal and, once in power, relied on an authoritarian state apparatus. They also used emotive slogans|

|and old prejudices (for example, against the Jews) to bolster the leader's strongman appeal |

|Nazism - term is most often used in connection with the dictatorship of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 (the "Third Reich"). |

|This ideology was held by the, which was led by Adolf Hitler. Adherents of Nazism held that the German nation and the purported|

|"Aryan" race were superior to other races. Nazism has been outlawed in modern Germany, although remnants and revivalists, known|

|as "Neo-Nazis," continue to operate in Germany and abroad. |

|a. One-Party Rule. |

|b. Police State – |

|Use of Force to achieve goals. |

|Military Strength and use of violence |

|Peace is Absurd! |

|c. Liebensraum (Living Space) – Expansion in the East. Living Space. German Nationalism. |

|Aggressive Foreign Policy |

|d. Autarky (Economic self-suffiency) |

|e. Totalitarian Form of Government – Absolute loyalty to he single will of the Fuhrer. From Cradle to Grave. Control and |

|organize society |

| f. Master Race – Aryan as the Master Race |

|Jews, Communists are sub-humans |

POLITICAL FEATURES

|One-Party Rule – Nazi Party is the only party. Ban all rival political parties. Communist Party illegal. Leaders sent to |

|concentration camps. |

|Police State – |

|Use of SS (Schutzstaffel/ Hitler’s Personal bodyguards); Gestapo (secret police) |

|Terror tactics to intimidate, arrest and kill possible opponents |

|Use of Force to achieve goals. |

|Target Groups:: All supporters of the Versailles Treaty |

|Foreigners who criticized Hitler and the Nazi |

|Communists and socialists |

|Democrats and liberals |

|Jews |

|Build up Military Strength - Remarmament |

|Civil Service, Police and Law Courts |

|High Court Judges/ Magistrates |

|Police Chiefs and Top Civil Servants (Government jobs) |

|Must be members of Nazi Party |

|Removal of Jews and Opposition Group |

|Widespread use of Propaganda |

|for complete loyalty and obedience |

|Joseph Goebbels Minister of Enlightenment and Propaganda |

|Censorship and control of all papers |

|Loud speakers in streets and bars to listen to Hitler speeches. |

|Control of movie industry |

|Control of radio broadcasts and manufacture of cheap radios |

|Mass rallies |

|1936 Berlin Olympics – ‘Aryan race’ |

ECONOMIC FEATURES

Helping Germany recover from the Great Depression

• 6 million unemployed in 1933

• 250,000 in 1939

• wealthiest nation in Europe with per capita incomes equal to the British

i) Join Nazi organizations like Hitler Youth

ii) Take over jobs formerly occupied by Jews

iii) Creation of large party bureaucracy. Administration (government jobs and Nazi party jobs). The cost or price was inefficiency.

iv) Ban trade unions. Ban strikes and demonstrations.

Many workers join the National Labor Service

v) Labor projects – new roads, autobahns (highways) hospitals and schools, reclamation of swamp lands and wastelands for crop production. Labour Service Corps (aged 18-25).

vi) Rearmament – arms and ammunition production

- air force and navy (Krupp metal industry)

- BMW, Mercedes engines in tanks.

- IG Farben – chemical industry for gassing Jews

- armed forces of 1.4 million by 1939

(but world trade fell from 10 per cent in 1929 to 8 percent in 1938)

(Pt is: German economy was built on the need to prepare for war and territorial expansion)

Autarky and Self-Sufficiency

1936 – 4 year Economic Plan.

Central Direction of Herman Goring, leading Nazi Minister.

Not entirely successful.

Develop substitutes for oil and rubber but at high costs.

Get Oil from Coal – IG Farben.

Germany still needed to import 1/3 of all raw materials

SOCIAL FEATURES

(relating to communal living. Or relating to human society and its modes of organization)

Control of education

Compulsory education for children up to the age of 14.

German Teacher’s League – Oath of loyalty to Hitler and join Nazi teacher’s union

Nazi curriculum

Nazification of German history and ideas – Racial purity and Nazi view.

Increase PE classes. Abandon religious education.

Biology classes – Racial superiority.

Education of Girls – turning them into perfect mothers and housewives

Hitler Youth – 1936 compulsory membership. Other youth organizations banned.

(NCC) – hiking, camping, shooting.

League of German Maidens – camping and hiking. Strong mothers.

Rise of Tenage gangs in the streets. Play their own music. Boys and Girls mix together. Edelweiss Pirates. Anti-authority and Anti-Nazi.

Position of Women in Society

Traditional:

Women are inferior to men.

Their job is to raise children and run the household.

Encouraging marriage to solev the problem of falling birth rates.

Loans to young couples.

The 3 Ks – Kinder, Kirche und Kuche (Children, Church and Kitchen)

Women doctors, civil servants and teachers forced to leave their jobs.

School girls trained for work at home.

Discourgaed from Higher education.

Keep healthy with hair in bun or plaits.

Discouraged from wearing trousers or makeup, dyeing or styling their hair or slimming.

Homes for unmarried mothers

Women at the work place during World War Two

Very successful but not all women accepted the changes. Those who grew up in the Weimar years resented these policies. A few joined opposition groups or criticized these policies

Nazi and the Churches

At first seemed to get along – religious freedom and approved of Chirstianity.

Catholic Church – Signed a Concordant with Pope to allow Catholic Church to run its own church, schools and newspapers. In return, bishops take an oath of loyaly to Hitler.

Problems arose – Youth organizations. Catholic Schools. Imprisonment of Catholic priests and nuns.

1937 – Pope condemns Hitler and the Nazis

Protestant Churches – Divided. Many continued to suppor the Nazis.

Hitler set up a single Reich Church under a Nazi Bishop.

Promoted Nazi ideas.

Over 3 / 4 of Protestant Pastors (priests) opposed Nazi teachings.

Pastor Martin Niemoller – Persecuted.

Sent to concentration camps.

Control of Worker’s Union

German Labor Front replaced trade unions

Illegal to strike and leave jobs without state permission

National Campaigns: “Strength Through Joy” movement to organize leisure activities

sports facilities, cheap holidays and entertainment

production of a people’s car’ (Volkswagen) for workers to afford and cheap radios

autobahns

Anti-Jewish PolicieS

• 1933 boycott of Jewish businesses, doctors, shopkeepers, dentists

• SA paint ‘Jude’ (Jew) on windows and enforce the boycott.

• New law introduced to ban them from government jobs. Jewish civil servants, lawyers and university teachers sacked.

• 1934 – Banned by local councils from public places like parks, playing fields and swimming pools.

• 1935 – Nuremberg Laws - Jews are not German citizens; No inter-marriages or relationships allowed with Jews. Wear yellow star. Can’t vote, can’t hold government office.

• 1936 – lull in the anti-Jewish campaign. Olympics year.

• 1937 – Jewish businesses taken over by Germans.

• 1938 – Jews not allowed to treat German patients. (for doctors, dentists and lawyers) Jewish children excluded from German schools and universities. Red letter ‘J’ to be stamped on passport.

Kristallnacht - ‘night of the broken glass) November 1938 – 3 Day campaign to

destroy Jewish shops by SA. 200 synagogues (Jewish place of worship) burned

Polish Jew, Herschel Grunspan shot a German diplomat in Paris – that was the excuse.

• Himmler, head of the SS, and the start of concentration camps

• Genocide and the “Final Solution’; beginning of 1942 (4.5 m Jews gassed); 6m die.

Opposition to Hitler

• Those who flee – famous scientists, artists, writers and musicians

• Cardinal Archbishop of Munich and Lutheran Pastor Niemoller arrested

• Youth gangs – Edelweiss pirates;

• Col. Von Stauffenberg plot (20 July 1944), 6 weeks after D-day

What was in Mein Kampf (My struggle)

• Overthrow the Treaty of Versailles

• Unite all German peoples under one leader (borders of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Austria)

• ‘Living Space’ Lebensraum) in Eastern Europe.

German Foreign Policy

Tactic was to act boldly but sooth their opponents with conciliatory speeches

1. Withdraw from World Disarmament Conference and from the League of Nations

Germany re-arms (1933)

2. Saar is returned (1935)

3. Conscription – 600,000 men (36 divisions) (1935)

1938 = 800,000 + reserves and Luftwaffe

4. Rhineland is re-militarized (Locarno and Versailles agreement torn apart) 1935

5. Rome-Berlin Axis Pact 1936

Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan and later Italy in 1937

6. Anscluss / unification with Austria (1938)

Schuschnigg’s referendum

7. Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia (1938); 3.5 million Germans. Heavy industry; defensible)

Munich Conference (September 1938); Guarantee of Czechoslovakia freedom

8. Annexation of Czechoslovakia (March 1939)

9. Non Aggression Pact with Russia

10. Invasion of Poland in September 1939

Lloyd Yeo (Montfort Secondary)

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