Totalitarianism: Germany

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Totalitarianism Germanys Third Reich

• Section 20.104

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The Rise of Adolf Hitler

• Born 1889
• Not an intellectual (like Mussolini before WWI)
• Never a socialist
• Father was Austrian customs officials
• Died when Hit was 14
• Mother passed soon after
• Dropped out of HS at 16
• Attempted to get into Academy of Fine Arts in
  Vienna but rejected
• A drifter, postcard painter

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Hitlers Dislikes

•  In Vienna he developed a hatred for
• the Habsburg court, snobby nobility, Mixed
  (Hybridization) nationalities, Leftist (Marxism)
  leanings of Austrian workers, Jews (who had risen
  to prominent positions in the liberal government
  and assimilated into German culture)
• Extremely race conscious and prided himself
  (incorrectly) as a pure German (Aryan)
• Also hated Capitalism, Socialism, Internationalism

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Nazi Origins

• Moved to Munich in 1913, capital of Bavaria
• Volunteered for German army
• Served as dispatch runner to front line
• Victim of gas attack and was temporarily blinded
  and unable to speak
• Only rose to corporal but was awarded military
  medals
• Viewed was as thrilling, noble, liberating
• War gave Hit a sense of purpose, a higher cause
• Peace was boring

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Nazi Origins Continued

• Munich of 1919 was hotbed of socialist and anti
  socialist activity
• Bavarian Soviet Republic last only 3 weeks
• Secret societies and paramilitary organizations
  led by discontented army officers agitated
• Hitler at the army behest joined the small party
  called the German Workers party and became its
  leader
• Was urged to join as a way of combating socialist
  and democratic propaganda among vets and workers
• Nazis (from the German way of pronouncing 1st 2
  syllables of National

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Treaty of Versailles
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Weimars Failure to Democratize

• Government born cursed
• Versailles, peace, reparations, hyperinflation of
  1923
• Did not inaugurate deep social changes that may
  of democratized German society
• Communist and more dangerous monarchist and
  antirepublican armed bands threatened
• Kapp putsch of 1920
• Murdered Walter Rathenau in 1922
• Had organized German production during eh war and
  was foreign minister
• Democratic and Jewish
• Matthias Erzberger, moderate of Catholic Center
  party who had stabbed the army in the back by
  signing Versailles
• Brownshirts (or Stormtroopers) was one of these
  private armies

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The Beer Hall Putsch

• French army occupied the Ruhr in 1923 to collect
  reparations
• Germans were indignant
• Hitler and the Nazis denounced Weimar for its
  weakness and tried to seize power
• Used the March to Rome as their model
• Beer hall putsch in Munich
• Hitler gave impassioned speech on platform of a
  beer hall (fired gun into ceiling)
• Said national revolution has broken out
• Quickly suppressed by the police
• Hitler sentenced to 5 years (only served 1)

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Mein Kampf

• My Struggle
• Stream of personal recollections, racism,
  nationalism, collectivism, historical
  interpretation, anti-Semitism, politics
• Sold widely
• Book 5 week trial put Hitler in jail gave him
  national prominence
• Supported by General Ludendorff
• Nazis lost their steam as Dawes Plan fueled
  economic revival
• But in 29 the Great Depression hit and the
  lunatic fringe put Hitler in stratosphere of
  Napoleon

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The Crisis Confronting Germany

• Germany was hardest hit by GD
• Foreign loans stopped or recalled
• Unemployment 6 million
• Middle class (still reeling from 23) lost faith
  in government and economy
• Communist gained ground
• Middle class looked for an alternative to
  Bolshevism
• Hatred and blame placed on Versailles
• Democracy itself (ideology that wholly satisfied
  none and crushed none) seemed foreign and
  un-German

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Hitlers Propaganda

• Stirred resentment against Versailles, Weimar
  democracy
• Called for true democracy of the Volk
• Lumped all Leftist together and claimed that his
  was the true socialism
• Denounced war profiteers, big business
• Denounced Jews (only 600 thousand in all Germany)
  played on nations lowest common denominator
• 1930 Won 107 seats in Reichstag
• 6.5 million voted for them
• 7/1932 had 230 seats (far from a majority)
• Main political rival were the communists
• Had 100 seats in 11/32

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Hitler Named Chancellor

• Conservatives (Rhineland steel magnates,
  industrialist, nationalists, aristocrats,
  Junkers, army officers) believed that they could
  use and control Hitler
• In spite of his anti-capitalistic ranting
• Franz von Papen and General Kurt von Schleicher
  (both had lost chancellorships) prevailed upon
  President Paul von Hindenburg to name Hitler
  chancellor of a coalition cabinet
• 1/30/1933 Hitler legally became chancellor of
  German Republic
• Hitlers call for new elections were halted as a
  mysterious fire burned down the Reichstag
  building
• Nazis blamed the Communists
• Red Scare used as excuse to suspend freedom of
  speech, press
• Brownshirts frightened population
• With the backing of Nationalist the Nazis had 52
  of the votes and gave Hitler dictatorial powers
  (national emergency)

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The Nazi State

• Hit called new order the Third Reich
• 1st was Holy Roman Empire
• 2nd empire of Bismarck
• Said the 3rd was outgrowth and natural historical
  culmination and would last 1 thousand years
• Took title of Leader (Fuhrer)
• Claimed to embody the sovereignty of the German
  people
• Democracy, parliamentarianism, liberalism were
  labeled as Jewish and therefore un-German
• Classified anyone with one Jewish grandparent as
  Jewish
• Drove them from public office, civil service,
  teaching

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Anti-Semitism

• Nuremberg laws of 1935 deprived them of
  citizenship and forbade intermarriage
• Kristallnacht (11/9/38) night of broken glass
• A 17 year old Polish Jewish student assassinated
  a German diplomat in Paris
• Storm troopers smashed and looted Jewish stores,
  synagogues and beat up thousands
• 30 thousand were sent off to concentration camps
• Government issued Billion mark fine of the Jewish
  community for provoking the assault and collected
  the insurance payments for property damage
• US and Europe closed their doors to those who
  wanted to flee Germany

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Coordinating German Society

• Totalitarian state eliminated other parties, old
  states (Prussia, Bavaria)
• Nazi party purged itself (6/30/34)
• Old Brownshirts were accused of plotting against
  Hitler and were executed
• Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei) was a secret
  political police who with the Peoples Courts
  suppressed decent and imprisoned thousands in
  concentration camps
• Church leaders under state control
• Old Teutonic gods were resurrected worshipped
• Nazi Youth Movement schools indoctrinated new
  generation
• National Labor Front replaced labor unions
• leadership principle set up employers as mini-
  Fuhrers
• Public works projects eliminated unemployment
• Strength Through Joy subsidized low incomes with
  paid vacations, entertainment

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Economic Autarky and Self-Sufficiency

• Four Year Plan (1936)
• Other nations in the Great Depression followed
  policy of economic nationalism
• But Nazis sought complete independence from
  foreign trade
• Chemist developed artificial rubber (Buna),
  plastics, synthetic textiles
• Planned to eliminate trade barriers (tariffs) by
  relegating neighboring countries to dependence on
  Germany products or by conquering them outright
• Germany was transformed into a war machine with
  Hitler viewed as a savior
• Today Germany, tomorrow the whole world.

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Totalitarianism Some Origins and Consequences

• Term 1st used by Mussolini but his regime was not
  as all encompassing to merit it
• 1st appeared in Bolshevik Revolution
• Appearance after WWI was not a historical
  accident
• State had been gathering power since the Middle
  Ages, assumed jurisdiction over law courts,
  armies, taxes, religion, economic activity,
  education, infrastructure
• 20th century totalitarian state was monolithic
  and insinuated itself on all aspects of life

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Reliance on Historic Nationalism

• Tot greatly exaggerated historic nationalism
• Rejected individualism (liberalism)
• Promoted organic theory of society
• The state was a living organism and the
  individual was a cell
• The individual had no independent existence but
  received life from the nation (state)
• Individual reason or freedom or opinions were
  meaningless
• Claimed that event science was different
• Nazi science v Bourgeoisie science
• Soviets dialectic materialism v capitalistic
  science
• Ideas of truth, beauty, morality were determined
  by the people
• Enlightenment concepts of natural law, reason,
  unalienable rights, progress of mankind were gone

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Propaganda

• Totalitarian regimes sought to shape peoples
  minds
• Had existed but now became total
• Formerly ideas were suppressed via censorship of
  books, people
• Tot manufactured thought
• Manipulated opinion and rewrote history
• Books, newspapers encouraged whole ideologies
• Loudspeakers blared in streets
• Billboard size posters of the Fuhrer appeared
  everywhere
• Constant repetition fostered the belief in the
  most fantastic rubbish
• People actually began to lose ability to use
  reason

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Racism

• Defined the nation in a tribal sense (a
  biological entity) with people sharing a common
  ancestry
• Anti-Semitism was present since the Middle Ages
  but Nazis Anti-Sem had nothing to do with
  religion
• Jews had risen to prominent positions
• Propagandist used Jews as a means of getting
  racial pure forget real problems of poverty,
  unemployment
• Made differences b/t rich and poor seem
  unimportant
• Blamed problems on outside forces and placed
  dictator up as indispensable unifier of all
  classes
• Trotskyism, imperialism, international Jewry
• Blamed economic disparities on other countries
  and made war seem like a solution for social ills

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The Glorification of Violence

• Use and glorification of violence is most glaring
  difference b/t democracies and Tot
• The cult of violence (struggle) emerged before
  WWI and was nurtured by war
• Bolsheviks used war to gain power
• Muss used the threat of Revolution to seize power
• 1920s in most civilized nations of Europe private
  armies marched, bullied, and murdered with
  impunity
• By 1930 torture would return

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The Cult of the Body

• Ethically it was violent and neopagan
• Distorted Nietzsche's philosophy which called for
  people to get off their laurels and live
  dangerously
• Hitler Youth
• Played on the juvenile idea that by joining a
  group, wearing a uniform, and exercising in the
  outdoors the nation would be rise
• Body Cult Physical toughness, procreation were
  encouraged
• Euthanasia was adopted to rid the ill, aged and
  insane
• Eugenics were used to explain apparent
  differences b/t the races and rationalize the
  extermination of lesser races

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The Spread of Dictatorship

• 1938 only 10 of 27 European nations remained
  democratic
• Included GB, Fran, Holland, Bel, Swit, Czech,
  Fin, Den, Nor, Swed
• Why?
• Weak democratic traditions Poor education
  power of reactionaries Red Scare discontented
  national minorities economic depression
• Generic fascism emerged in Portugal, Spain, Latin
  America
• Strong central leader, Military supported
  government, One party systems, repressed
  individual liberties, abolishment of
  parliamentary institutions
• Corporative state organization
• Outlawing labor organization
• Acceptance and glorification of violence
• War was a noble thing
• Love a peace a sign of decadence
• Recurrent international crises paved the way to
  war in 39