germany section c - reasons for war

german history - racism and social darwinism

• Lebensraum = idea present since 19th century

  • scramble for Africa

• empires gave rise to ideas about Social Darwinism to legitimise their imperialist policies

• Ernst Haeckel - biologist who made hierarchy of human race, with Aryans at top of most civilised

  • Alfred Roseberg, Nazi philosopher, cites him as influence

• Friedrich Ratzel - German geographer who argued nation’s geographical expansion was determined by its racial vivacity

• Joseph Arthu de Gobineau (French) - came up with ‘Aryan’ with racial connotations

• Alfred Ploetz 1895 - German eugenicist, wrote ‘The Foundations of German Racial Hygiene’, arguing for defence of German racial purity

• Herero Uprising 1904 - local tribes revolted in southwest Africa and were brutally repressed

  • genocide - 80,000 dropped to 16,363

  • concentration camps - r a p e prevalent, and 1/3 survivors were those produced as a result

german history - anti-Semitism

• present long before Hitler - Jews blamed for Black Death

• 19th Century - concepts of Judaism viewed as negative racial characteristics

• Houston Stewart Chamberlain 1910 - wrote book placing heroic German people and Jews at odds

• Kaiser wrote about Jews - ‘Jews and mosquitoes… are a nuisance that humanity must get rid of some way or another. i believe the best would be gas'?’

german history - policies of previous german leaders

• Kaiserreich - desires for empire and competition with GB

• Kaiser’s racial policies in Africa

• Bernhard von Bulow - German foreign minister 1897-1900, Chancellor 1900-09

  • advocated Weltpolitik and Flottenpolitik

• Theobold von Bethmann-Hollweg - Chancellor 1909-17

  • advocated war to realise programme of territorial expansion

• Pan German Naval League 1890s

  • claimed to have 1m members

german history - defeat in WWI

• propaganda made people think they would never lose - shock when they did

• Diktat - caused indignation, support present for revisionism

• militarism increased

• unification associated with dominance over France

• Nazis quick to blame politicians, democracy and socialists - scapegoat

  • stab in the back

german history - Treaty of Versailles

• military advised politicians to sign it, but then quickly moved to blame them for the TofV

  • undermines democracy immediately, making SPD weaker

• possibly too harsh - but justified with TofBrest Litovsk that Germany imposed on USSR

  • 62m population, 74% iron, 26% rail and 27% farmland taken

• propaganda made it seem shameful - Deutsche Zeitung ‘Revenge, German Nation!’

• however, reparations were payable, at the expense of unpopular economic policies

• tensions between GB and France made it easier for Germany to break the TofV

Hitler - Mein Kampf 1924

• Lebensraum

• Pan Germanism - uniting German speakers

• elimination of Jewish threat

  • racial pseudoscience

• destruction of communist threat

  • ideological enemy

• revision of TofV