The Rise of the National Socialists

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The Rise of the National Socialists Germany
1933-1938Back to Authoritarianism

• Introduction to Modern GermanyWeek Eight, Sem 1
• Underline hyperlink

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Outline

• National Socialism before 1929
• Nazis, Nationalists the Economic Crisis
• National Socialist Germany 1933-1938

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National Socialism before 1929From DAP to NSDAP

• Deutsche Arbeiterpartei Anton Drexlerone of
  very many small völkisch parties and nationalist
  groupings
• National-Sozialistische-Deutsche- Arbeiter
  Partei NSDAP

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National Socialism before 1929Hitlers early
career

• b. 12.4.1889 at Braunau, Austria
• Early adult years in Vienna as a (semi-)
  vagrant see George Taboris play Mein Kampf
• Social political fabric of pre-WWI Vienna
• Christian Socialism of Karl Lueger, its Mayor
• Anti-Semitism protection of lower-middle classes
  and peasantry against capitalists and
  proletarians
• Rejection of internationalism in favour of
  Pan-Germanism

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National Socialism before 1929Hitlers early
career

• Brief sojourn in Munich
• Outbreak of WWI joins Bavarian List Regiment.
• Service at 1st Battle of Ypres (Langemarck
  Fronterlebnis)
• Lance-Corporal
• Wounded, gassed, Iron Cross Class I/II

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National Socialism before 1929Hitlers early
career

• With financial support of Reichswehr makes
  contact with DAP and soon becomes its Führer
• Later subsidies form Munich Nationalists
  Reactionary Bavarian Government and -inter alia -
  Anti-Bolshevik-League

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National Socialism before 1929Hitlers early
career

• Ruthlessness of methods
• Skills as a propagandist
• Semi-military Sturm-Abteilung (SA Ernst Röhm)

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Munich Putsch

• Hitlers first bid for power (9.11.1923)Attempted
  ignominiously botched military coup
• Republican justice miserably weak against
  counter-revolutionaries of the Right
• 5yrs prison sentence, commuted to less than one
  year in Landsberg
• Assisted by R. Hess, writes Mein Kampf

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1925 - 1929

• Abandonment of putschist approach in favour of
• legal, parliamentary path for
  anti-parliamentary ends and attempts to widen
  base on a national scale
• Few inroads made in during the years of so-called
  stabilisation of Weimar democracy
• 1927 Party Membership 40,000
• 1928 elections 2.6 of vote/12 seats, 870,000
  voters (full statistics here)

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Economic Crisis of 1929-

• World recession has harsh reverberations in
  Germany, in particular (why?)
• Weimar already fragile and with many opponents
• Great Depression causes great shift to right
• More insistent calls for Third Reich
• Tide turning politically against progressive
  forces
• Air of panic
• Campaign against Young Plan on reparations(Hugenb
  erg DNVP) converts NS to nationwide organisation
  and brings financial backing

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Unemployment Trends
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Presidential Rule from 1930Return to
Authoritarianism

• Hindenburg and Article 48
• Promulgation of emergency decrees
• Parliamentary legislation (and sittings) cease
• Deflationary policies under Brüning (reparations
  repayments) exacerbate domestic economic
  conditions e.g. cuts in unemployment benefit.
  Simultaneously Osthilfe

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Main Factors

• Attacks on system by old elites combine with
• Economic Crisis and coincide with
• Mobilisation of mass movement headed by
  charismatic leadership (Ian Kershaw) of Adolf
  Hitler and employing mass propaganda
• NSDAP achieves electoral breakthrough in Sept.
  1930 2nd largest party after SDP with 107 seats
  (6m voters)

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The Hitlerian Vision

• Defeat of external enemies
• Reunion of all Germans in one state
• Destruction of Jews, Marxists, and other internal
  enemies

• Picture of great united society of all patriotic
  Germans united in working for the glory and
  harmony of the fatherland
• Fanatical devotion to a fanatical Führer

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Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer
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Meaning of the Hitlergruß
Significance of Nov.1932 elections
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Drittes Reich

• National Socialist Dictatorship 1933-1945
• Implied continuity (HRE, Kaiserreich)
• Das dritte Reich (1923) by Arthur Moeller van
  den Bruck
• Use of term banned by Ministry of Propaganda in
  1939

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National SocialismIdeology

• German Manifestation of Fascism(cf. Italy,
  France, Spain, GB, Hungary etc)
• Anti-Semitism
• Myth of the Volksgemeinschaft
• Racist Policy
• Anti-Communist Anti-Capitalist(?) Anti-Modern

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Nazi Germany 1933-1938Gleichschaltung

• Bücherverbrennung (10.5.1933) here for video file
• Reichskulturkammerfounded 22. 9. 1933, to
  encourage all forms of artistic creation on
  behalf of Nazi ideology. The Chamber was linked
  to the Ministerium für Volksaufklärung und
  Propaganda under Joseph Goebbels
• divided into seven subordinated chambers for
  literature, music, films, theatre, radio, fine
  arts, and press. All were directed by Goebbels.

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War against the inner enemies

• Opposition Parties
• Any Dissidents 1st concentration camps
• 1934 purge of party (night of long knives)
• Series of Anti-Jewish Laws, including
• Nuremberg Racial Laws
• Gleichschaltung of society/creation of Nazi
  Organisations e.g. Arbeitsfront/ Hitlerjugend,
  etc. Feelgood Factor in every day life (KdF,
  Berlin Olympics)
• Economy put on a war footing
• More here on domestic policy

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Foreign Policy Triumphs

• January 1935 Saarland Heim ins Reich
• March 1935 Reintroduction of general military
  service in contravention of Versailles Treaty
• June 1935 Anglo-German Naval Treaty
• 7.3.1936 Occupation of demilitarised Rhineland

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Territorial Expansion

• Four Year Plan for War of 1938
• Legion Condor involvement in Spanish Civil War (3
  Fascist powers in concert)
• Anschluß of Austria (March 1938)
• Sudeten Crisis Summer 1938
• Munich Conference of 1938border areas ceded to
  Germany and Chamberlain proclaimed peace in our
  time
• March 1939, Czechoslovakia invaded, with no
  intervention by Western nations in a far-away
  country of which they knew very little
• More here on foreign policy