Hitler

1
Hitlers Germany

• Kevin J. Benoy

2
A Totalitarian State

• Hitler began to establish a totalitarian state
  immediately upon assuming power in 1933.
• He was helped by having gullible conservative
  allies and an aging President who would soon
  die in office.

3
A Totalitarian State

• Trade unions were abolished.
• The KPD (Communist Party) was abolished.
• Non-Aryans were dismissed from government jobs.
• Opponents and suspected opponents were harrassed.

4
A Totalitarian State

• Media were censored.
• The legal system now took orders from the
  government.
• Nazis were appointed judges and Chiefs of police.
• The Gestapo (Secret State Police) was ordered to
  identify and eliminate opponents of the Nazis.
• Anyone could be arrested on mere suspicion and
  held in protective custody.
• The first concentration camp Dachau was
  established.

5
A Totalitarian State

• Party members were slotted into government
  positions, so that party and state became
  indistinguishable.
• The federal system was replaced by a unitary one
  divided into districts controlled by Gauleiters,
  appointed by Hitler.

6
A Totalitarian State

• In the Night of the Long Knives Hitler
  destroyed the left wing of his own party to
• eliminate opposition within the Party.
• guarantee that the army not interfere in national
  politics.

7
A Totalitarian State

• The aim of the Nazis was Gleichaltung
  coordination or subordination of the state.
• All power resided in the Fuhrer (leader).
• Private life apart from the state was not
  tolerated the motto being what benefits the
  state is right.
• Individuals had duties to the state, but the
  state was not responsible to individuals.

8
Youth Policy

• Totalitarian states understand that their hold on
  power relies on the unquestioning support of a
  fervent core of supporters.
• Nazi youth groups were formed to ensure a
  continuing supply of fanatical followers.

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Youth Policy

• Young boys joined the Pimpfen (Little Fellows) at
  the age of 5 or 6.
• Activities included hiking, camping and physical
  activity along with political indoctrination.

10
Youth Policy

• At 10, boys wrote a test, moving on to the
  Deutsche Jungvolk (Young Folk), if they passed.
• Earlier activities continued, but military
  discipline was stressed and each boy swore an
  oath to Hitler.

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Youth Policy

• At 14, boys could join the Hitler Youth.
• Here, advanced military training was given.

12
Youth Policy

• Between 18 and 25, young men had to serve a year
  of Labour Service in the Reichsarbeitsdiens
  the RAD.
• After 1935, 2 years of military service was
  required.

13
Youth Policy

• Girls organizations began a little later in age.
• At 10, girls could join the Jungmadelbund (Young
  Maidens). They engaged in physical activities
  and health training.

14
Youth Policy

• Older girls, at 14, joined the Bund Deutscher
  Madel (League of German Maidents).
• Physical fitness was stressed
• They had to run 60 meters in 14 seconds, throw a
  ball 12 meters, march for 2 hours, swim 100
  meters and make a bed perfectly.
• Motherhood training was important.
• The duty of German girls, to Hitler, was to stay
  home, marry and produce offspring for the service
  of the state.

15
Youth Policy

• Education was carefully controlled.
• Biology and History were given special attention
• Biology taught the superiority of Aryans.
• History taught the virtues of Nazi ideas.
• All lessons began and ended with a Nazi salute
  and Heil Hitler.

16
Youth Policy

• The brightest children were hand-picked to attend
  special Adolf Hitler Schools and trained to be
  future leaders.
• Though the goal was to have one such school in
  every Gau, the expense to the Party was
  prohibitive and only 10 such schools existed in
  1939.

17
The Churches

• In 1937, Pope Pius XI condemned Nazism as
  anti-Christian.
• Priests and nuns who spoke out were arrested and
  sent to concentration camps.
• However, the Church could not count on the
  support of its own followers as Nazi ideology
  often took precedence over Church teachings.

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Youth Policy

• Marches, rallies, party hikes and Nazi youth
  camps fostered great enthusiasm on the part of
  youngsters and children were encouraged to look
  carefully at what their elders did reporting
  anything that might be considered anti-Nazi.
• Children were turned into informants, even
  against their parents.

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The Churches

• Hitler first seemed to wish to avoid
  confrontation with the Churches.
• In 1933 he signed a Concordat (agreement) with
  the Roman Catholic Church, promising not to
  interfere in church affairs in return for the
  church staying out of politics.
• He did not honour his part of the bargain
  banning the Catholic Youth League because it
  competed for membership with Nazi youth
  organizations.

20
The Churches

• The Protestant Churches, under Pastor Niemoller
  once a supporter of Hitler, also resisted, with
  Niemoller and 800 followers arrested.

21
The Churches

• In 1935 Hitler created a Reich Ministry for
  Church Affairs to control the Protestant
  Churches.
• Hanns Kerrl, the Minister, was given the power to
  grant or withhold funds, confiscate church
  property, imprison ministers and issue binding
  orders.

22
Church Policy

• Children learned a new creed
• Jesus freed men from sin just as Hitler saved
  Germany from ruin.
• And Jesus worked for heaven while Hitler works
  for the German earth.
• Jesus became a martyr sacrificed by the Jews and
  avenged by the Fuhrer.

23
Church Policy

• Raised a Catholic, Hitler did not grasp Christian
  ideals.
• Privately he said that one is either a German or
  a Christian. One cannot be both and that
  Christian teachings were all the same Jewish
  swindle...In the end I will eradicate
  Christianity in Germany, root and branch.
• Publicly he continued to use religious
  terminology in his speeches.

24
Jewish Policy

• Of all the persecuted groups in Germany, none
  suffered more grievously than German Jews.
• They were publicly accused of being at the root
  of almost all national problems.
• One of the 25 basic party policies stated None
  but members of the nation may be citizens of the
  state. None but those of German blood may be
  members of the nation. No Jew, therefore, may be
  a member of the nation.
• While other policies were discarded when it
  suited the Fuhrer, this was never modified.

25
Jewish Policy

• In April 1933, the SA promoted a boycott of
  Jewish businesses and services.
• Customers were harassed if they entered Jewish
  premises.

26
Jewish Policy

• In 1935 Hitler passed the Nuremberg Laws,
  depriving Jews of their citizenship, voting
  rights, and the right to marry non-Jews.
• Businesses were confiscated and Jews were
  encouraged to leave the country but other
  nations refused to accept them.

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Jewish Policy

• In 1938 a German diplomat in Paris was murdered
  by a French Jew.
• The SS orchestrated a massive retaliation against
  German Jews Kristallnacht (Crystal night) so
  named because of the vast expanses of broken
  glass.

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Jewish Policy

• The damage was extensive,.
• 814 shops were looted.
• 191 synagogues were burned down.
• Officially 36 Jews were beaten to death but the
  reality was worse.
• 20,000 Jews were sent into protective custody
  in concentration camps.

29
Jewish Policy

• Most Germans were numbed by the event but they
  accepted the increasing harassment of their
  neighbours without a murmur.
• This silence also met the persecution of Gypsies
  and homosexuals.

30
Jewish Policy

• Jews were barred from theatres, concerts, movies
  and other public performances.
• They could not buy jewellery or gold.
• They could not walk on certain streets.
• Finally, they were forced to wear large yellow
  stars to make them stand out clearly and were
  banished to ghettos the last stage before the
  final solution, which would begin in 1942.

31
Race Theory

• The Party philosopher, Rosenberg, took racial
  theory to absurd lengths.
• He argued that race was the primordial force in
  society upon it language, art, beauty, progress
  and achievement were all based.
• Germans were, naturally, superior to all others.
• Blood and Soil together produc ed the folk
  soul. This made it blasphemous to allow German
  soil to be contaminated by an alien race.

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Race Theory

• This version of Social Darwinism encouraged
  imperial expansion.
• Hitler spoke of Lebensraum, living space, at the
  cost of neighbouring countries.
• In addition, the Auslandsdeutsche (Germans living
  abroad), were encouraged to return to the Reich.

33
Life in Hitlers Germany

• For those not among the scapegoats, life was
  increasingly comfortable.
• Hitler brought economic stability and relative
  prosperity (at a cost to the persecuted).
• His reduction of unemployment and creation of a
  strong business climate endeared him to
  businesses and workers.

34
The Economy

• Hitler was committed to a policy of autarky
  intending that Germany become economically
  self-sufficient.
• Production targets were set by Hitlers Minister
  of Economics, Hjalmar Schacht, in the 1934 Four
  Year Plan.
• Though the aim was for total self-sufficiency,
  the target was impossible.

35
The Economy

• It was possible for coal, iron and light metals,
  but not for copper and tin.
• Food supplies would continue to be imported.
• A barter trade system allowed Germany to stand
  outside the world currency system. The mark
  could be maintained at an unrealistic level and
  barter allowed Hitler to wage economic warfare by
  buying crops at artificially high prices and
  drawing countries into economic dependence on the
  Reich as was done with Greece, Jugoslavia,
  Romania and Bulgaria.

36
The Economy

• Unemployment was greatly reduced.
• In January, 1933 it stood at 6 million.
• By December, 1934 it stood at 2.6 million.
• By 1937 it was 1 million.
• In 1938 there was a labour shortage.

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The Economy

• Worker loyalty was ensured by full employment and
  by state administered welfare and social
  insurance plans.
• Even holidays were planned by the Kraft durch
  Freude (Strength through Joy), which organized
  and supervised leisure activities.

38
Rearmament

• The lions share of funding and production in
  this economic rebuilding was for armaments and
  military related work.
• Hitler announced rearmament in 1934.
• In 1935 conscription was introduced (which
  reduced unemployment).

39
Rearmament

• An air force, the Luftwaffe, was openly created
  in 19354.
• In 1936 a new, powerful, warship was launched
  the Graf Spee. Soon to be followed by the even
  more powerful Bismarck and Tirpitz.

40
Rearmament

• In 1938 the army was shaken up, with the
  replacement of Fritsch, the Commander in-Chief
  and the War Minister.
• Hitler assumed the position of War Minister
  personally.
• By this time, the old high ranking leaders could
  no longer count on the support of those below
  them in a show-down with Hitler.
• The conscripts and junior officers who gained
  rapid advancement in an era of rearmament were,
  for the most part, ardent Nazis.

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Rearmament

• By 1939 the army numbered 730,000 men, with a
  further 1 million reserves.
• Germanys air-force had twice the numerical
  strength of Britains.
• In 1939, Germans spent 16 times as much on
  armaments as in 1933.
• Even autobahn (highway) construction projects had
  military purpose, allowing the swift deployment
  of troops.
• New synthetic oils, rubber and wool were
  developed (with indifferent success) to avoid the
  strategic weaknesses noted in World War I.

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finis