unit 10 - STAR TERMS

Beer Hall Putsch

• violent riot and armed uprising in Munich, Germany, on November 8, 1923.

• Adolf Hitler and members of the Nazi Party attempted to take over the Bavarian local government, hoping to do what Mussolini had done in Italy by seizing power through force. The uprising was quickly crushed by the Bavarian government, and Hitler was arrested, put on trial for treason, and sentenced to five years in prison.

• Important: his time in prison gave him opportunity to reflect on his ideology and write Mein Kampf, outlining his future plans. After this event, Hitler changed his tactics from violent revolution to gaining power through legal and political means.

Reichstag Fire

• February 27, 1933 in Berlin

• German parliament building caught fire.

• supposedly set by a communist, and Hitler and the German government used it as a pretext to claim that communists were plotting against the government.

• Hitler convinced President Paul von Hindenburg to issue an emergency decree that gave the government expanded powers and limited civil rights.

• This led to the Enabling Act, which effectively gave Hitler dictatorial authority.

• allowed Hitler to legally gain emergency powers and eliminate political opposition, solidifying his control over Germany.

Nuremberg Laws

• passed in September 1935, Germany, under Hitler and the Nazi government.

• These racial laws excluded German Jews from citizenship and forbade marriage and relationships between Jews and German citizens.

• The laws defined “Aryans” as those descended from non-Jewish parents or grandparents and legally separated Jews politically, socially, and legally from the rest of German society.

• Important: they institutionalized racial discrimination and were a major step in isolating Jews, reinforcing Hitler’s emphasis on preserving the so-called Aryan race.

Kristallnacht

• “Night of Shattered Glass,” November 9–10, 1938, in Germany.

• A Nazi-led violent rampage against Jewish people in which:

  • synagogues were burned

  • 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed

  • 100 Jews killed

  • 30,000 Jewish men arrested/ sent to concentration camps

• The Nazis used the assassination of a German official by a Polish Jew as a pretext for the attacks.

• Important: marked a major escalation in violence against Jews and led to even more drastic and systematic persecution in the years that followed.