Studied by 6 people
Nazi Anti-Semitism
➤ Extreme nationalism \n ➤ Social Darwinism \n ➤ Pseudo-scientific corruption of Darwins idea of natural selection \n \n Jews were blamed for many of Germany's problems (WWI), prejudice of religion and hatred on ancestry
Within anti-semitism, who were considered the superior races?
➤ Aryans \n ➤ Latins (Kinda)
Within anti-semitism, who were considered the inferior race?
➤ Slavs, Africans, Sinti-Roma, Asians \n ➤ Jews
How far back does anti-semitism go back?
To medieval times, potentially even farther back
Why were the jews considered "Blood Libel"?
They were considered to be the cause of many events in the past such as the Bubonic Plague and were a major contributor to the Crusades.
Were seen as a scape goat.
Who were considered Gypsies?
descending from people who immigrated from India in the Medieval Ages, the Gypsies lived in Communal living in caravans, were outsiders.
Faced Pre-Nazi discrimination (1926, 1929)
What were Nazi Policy on Gypsies?
Faced Pre-Nazi discrimination (1926, 1929)
✤ 1933 sterilization \n ✤ 1935 banning of intermarriage of Germans \n with "Gypsies, negroes, and their \n bastards"
How did the Nazi Policy on Gypsies get worse?
✤ 1936: Office to Combat Gypsy considered it a Nuisance
✤ 1937: increased mass arrests
✤ 1938: 1,000 sent to concentration camps
✤ 1939 2 concentration camps opened for Sinti and Roma
✤ 30,000 expelled from Germany to Poland
✤ 1941-45 250,000 killed by SS units and in death camps
How did the Nazis view homosexuality?
Wasn’t looked positively upon.
The Nazis followed their policy of discrimination \n \n ✤ After Night of Long Knives homosexuals purged from party \n ✤ Himmler purges SS \n ✤ Paragraph 175 of criminal code making homosexuality illegal \n ✤ 10 year sentence \n ✤ 100,000 arrested in Germany \n ✤ 50,000 imprisoned in concentration camps \n ✤ Discrimination continued after the war and many were not recognized as victims of Nazis
Where does Modern anti-Semitism start?
After emancipation in 1790
What consisted of modern-antisemitism?
➤ Nationalism and "Jewish Question" ➤ Anti-Semitism politics ➤ Social Darwinism ➤ Anti-Semitism in Vienna during Hitler early adulthood
Origins of the "Stab in the Back"
What was Nazi-Antisemitism?
How the Jews themselves were responsible for all that threatens Germany
Caused Germany to lose World War One, The Jews were the traitors
Communism, Karl Marx was a Jew
Caused the Great depression (So is said)
Lebensraum and the Solution to the "Jewish Question"
How as the Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life seen during the 1920s
✤ Removal of those "polluting the population" \n ✤ Prevention of reproduction (forced sterilization) and euthanasia ("mercy" killing)
Wasn’t something only done by Nazi Germany \n
✤ Sterilization programs in Sweden and Switzerland \n ✤ US states and sterilization of severe patients in psychiatric facilities
What were Nazi policies on racial hygiene after 1933
Moved from theory to practice, defined people as “useless mouths
✤ July 1933: Law for Prevention of Genetically Diseases
✤ Compulsory sterilization
Was done on mentally deficient individuals:
schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, epilepsy, hereditary blindness and deafness
✤ Expanded to alcoholism, habitual criminals, workshy. "Rhineland Bastards"
✤ 400,000 forcibly sterilized
Effect of Racial Hygeine policy later on
Led to the Arrests of:
Sinti-Roma (Gypsies)
prostitutes
beggars
homeless
Alcoholics
All above would be sent to concentration camps
T4 Program
Program done by Nazi Germany
framed as a euthanasia program— done to kill incurably ill, people physically or mentally disabled, emotionally distraught and even elderly people.
Done to Reduce consumption of resources
✤ 70,000 killed by gas by 1941
✤ Became the model for Holocaust
✤ Ends over fear of public backlash, particularly from the Catholic Church
What was Nazi Architecture?
Was a mixture of classical and modern architecture
Was curated by Albert Speer
How did the Germans go after art?
In 1937, they put forward an art exhibition displaying pieces seen as degenerate.
Within the collection, it featured works by Picasso, Matisse, Klee, Kandinsky and others
What attributes led to the Nazis having control over media and culture?
Eventually, almost all media consumed in Germany had been approved by Ministry of Propaganda
Monitoring of public opinion through block wardens
Hitler Youth
SD and Gestapo
How was Hitler seen by the German people?
Hitler was seen as a man of destiny \n In tune with all levels of society
\n Self-sacrificing hero of German national \n salvation
\n Germany itself was renewed and resuming its \n destiny as the master of Europe
\n How all Germans, through the Party and Hitler, had \n role to play in Germany's messainic mission
What were the effects of the Nazis having almost complete control over media and culture?
Much of society begun buying into it, even those that weren’t fully into it.
Increased the feelings of unity and conformity
All public dissent disappeared
Increased anti-Semitism
Slowly began to die down as the public got bored of it,
inability to completely remove all competing culture
What was the SS State?
Effectively a private army of Nazi Germany
• Created in 1934 fusing of security state and political state
Would overshadow the Storm Troopers (SA) in importance.
What made up the Organs of the SS?
Gestapo
• Considered the Official government secret police
• 1935-6 7,266 people affiliated with SPD and KPD would arrested and interred in concentration camps
• SD
• Internal security force of SS
• Order Police
• Regular police force
• Block Wardens
• Hitler Youth
• Informers - Both official and unofficial
Who was Antonio Gramsci
A humanist and a neo-marxist, developed the concept of hegemony
States how unlimited terror is often not effective or possible.
Repressive states to be effective require terror to be combined with consensus building.
How would the nazis conduct mass surveillance?
The public was vital
• Many volunteered information on those they thought disloyal to the regime • Some were false accusations
The Nazis worked to create contradictory goals: Mass participation and conformity Depoliticization of masses and turning them into passive consumers
The Nazis created contradictory goals
Very few would truly buy into the Nazi regime, everyone else went along with the motions.
What was the Winter Relief Program?
Program done to aid those in need
End class divisions, \n Creation of racial community of "National Comrades"
The Reich Church
A church established by Nazi Germany based off the Christian church, was done with intentions to take over the official state church.
This was the name given to the national church into which all protestant churches in Germany merged in 1933.
A fusion of the christianity and the Nazi Ideology.
The "Confessing Church"
Led by two men named Martin NIemöller and Dietrch
movement for revival within the German Protestant churches that developed during the 1930s.
The "Confessing Church" worked against the nazi's "Reich Church" until it was forced to go underground due to the growing opposition from the Nazis.
Who was Martin NIemöller?
A veteran submarine commander in World War One
Leader of the Confessing church,
Held traditional Christian anti-Semitism
Would break with Nazis of Jewish converts and attempts to Nazify the Protestant Church
later arrested in 1938
What was considered "Racial Hygiene"?
Removal of all thought to be threatening to
racial purity
✤ Long history in and outside of Germany
✤ Support from highly educated
How did the Nazis conflict with the Protestant Church?
Protestant church was divided
Attacks on university theology departments
University of Bonn and Munich
Pastors openly opposed to Nazis banned fired, by 1937 over 700 arrested
Others embrace the German Church and Regime
What was "Kristallnacht"?
Between Nov 9-10th...
➤ Massive, officially support pogrom
➤ Organized by Goebbels to regain favor
➤ Hitler supports, but keen to hide
➤ Synagogues burned, Jewish business ransacked
➤ 25,000 arrested and sent to concentration
camps
➤ 100 murdered, thousands injured and raped
What were the Nazi Party's views on the Catholic church?
Openly against many of the morals that make it up.
Ideas of peace, charity, love,
and forgiveness contradicted the Nazi
ideals of hyper nationalism and violent
struggle
• Nazis saw Christian virtues as weak
• Issue of Jewish roots of Christianity
Nazi Party relationship with the Christian Church
Consisted of 20 million Germans
Nazi have more ambiguous relationship
Many leaders were catholic
Nazis admired organization, discipline, hierarchy, and influence
Nazis opposed internationalism and political independence
Why did so many Germans support the Nazis?
Traditionally close relationship between Prussian state and
protestant Church
• Largest religious group in country
• Union of Throne and Altar
• Divine Right monarchy
• Majority religion in Germany
How did the Church view the Nazis?
Nazis seen as a buffer state between Communism
• Hitler's depiction as defender of Christian
Civilization
• Tool of "Divine Providence"
• Nazis assure them they would safeguard
the values and the Church
• Nazi leaders all Christians who never
renounced their religious affiliations
Clemens vol Galen
Bishop of Münster
• Condemned Nazi radicals like Alfred
Rosenberg
• Opposed T4 program, Gestapo, and
concentration camps
• Nazi plans to have him arrested after the
war
What was the Night of the Long Knives?
Purge of Nazi leaders by Adolf Hitler on June 30, 1934. Ernst Röhm wanted to have his troops incorporated into the new Wehrmacht that was being prepared to take the place of the Reichswehr.
Hitler, sacrificed Röhm, knowing that military strength was necessary in order to appeal to German generals, to gain army support.
Alleging that Röhm was plotting a putsch, Hitler ordered a massacre. Röhm and many more leaders of the SA were shot by members of Heinrich Himmler's SS.
Night of Broken Glass
Organized attack on Jewish people, as well as synagogues and their businesses
Hitler would later rationalize it by stating how the Jews had it coming, concluding that the Jewish Communities would pay for the damages done.
Ernst Rohm
head of the "Storm Troopers"; loyal aid to Hitler; killed by Hitler.
Was a good friend to Hitler.
Röhm helped Hitler win the support of the army in Bavaria and made available to him his private strong-arm force, which in October 1921 became the SA.
For his part in the Beer Hall Putsch of November 8-9, 1923, in Munich, Röhm was briefly imprisoned.
Otto Adolf Eichmann
One of hitler's top men
realized that sending jews to the concentration camps to die was easier than using the einsatzgruppen, (
often called "mobile killing units," they were best known for their role in the murder of Jews in mass shooting operations during the Holocaust.)
Heinrich Himmler
German Nazi who was chief of the SS and the Gestapo and who oversaw the genocide of six million Jews (1900-1945)
Reinhard Heydrich
Gestapo deputy chief
set out to gain the final solution to the Jewish Question.
Heinz Guderian
He was a German general during WWII and the major military theorist of his generation,
advocated armored thrusts to break enemy lines. He saw the potential of the tank as the key weapon of war.
Hermann Göring
German politician in Nazi Germany who founded the Gestapo and mobilized Germany for war (1893-1946)
Joseph Goebbels
Chief minister of the Nazi propaganda, and organizer of Kristallnacht
Head of Ministry of PropagandaMinistry
Make sure all theatre, film, literature,
art, press, broadcast brought in line
with Nazi worldview and ideology
Public relations in Germany and
internationally
Where did racial hygiene originate within the 1800s?
✤ Fears of supposed degeneration of
population with industrialization and mass
urbanization
✤ Social breakdown
✤ Children born of out of wedlock
✤ Alcoholism
✤ Tuberculosis
✤ Sexually transmitted disease
Meinkampf
Hitler's book My Fight. He wrote this while he was in arrest after leading an uprising in Feldherrnhalle and is his idea of what Germany should be.
States how propaganda shouldn't be complicated, should be clear and understandable that even the dumbest person can understand.
How was propaganda used within Nazi Germany?
It should inspire and prepare them for unpopular policies
First part would be completely disregarded
More effective to manipulate than invent
Propaganda shouldn't be complicated, should be clear and understandable that even the dumbest person can understand.
Propaganda be directed towards those lowest intellectual level
Repetitive
To use a little sliver of truth and make a web of lies out of it.
How did the Nazis use propaganda?
Posters, photographs, radio broadcasts, pamphlets, newspapers, and movies were used and made German citizens believe they were traitors if they didn't support it.
Massive expansion in new media of radio
"People's receivers" radios provided by substitutes from the government
Government controlled message, (2/3 of it was music. If it was constant propaganda, it would be tuned out)
Books were banned, by 1934 1,000 different books were banned.
How was the film industry affected by the Nazis?
Only German films would be available to the general public
2 largest film studios (UFA and Tobis) would be effectively nationalized
Not as much heavy handed propaganda. Most would be dramas and comedies rather than political.
Reected the desires of public for lighter entertainment
What was the goal of the regime?
To build a foundation of popular support rather than a foundation based off fear.
How did the Germans end the independent press?
Nazis propaganda of "Lying press" before 1933
After 1933, Social Democratic and Communist newspapers closed
Creation of Reich Association of Journalists
Only politically acceptable journalist allowed to work
All journalism had to pass Nazi censorship
What goals were placed on younger generations
For boys: physical fitness and military training
• To the win the future struggle aboard
For girls: fitness for motherhood, focus on "racial hygiene and purity"
• To win the future struggle at home
How were the nazi youth encouraged to manage their relationship with their family.
Youth encouraged to oppose and
denounce parents seen as
ideologically opposed or
insufficiently loyal
What limits did the Nazi youth have with in regards to control?
Not totally pervasive
• Many more interested in sports than ideology
• Long hikes soon lose appeal
• Acts of passive resistance - not attending meetings, etc
How did the Nazis look to the education system?
Desire to manipulate during the
formative years
• History guidelines:
• Focus on heroism and leadership
• Racial/national struggle
• German cultural supremacy
• Germany's special national mission
How was higher education impacted by the Nazi Regime?
• Less control over universities
• Jewish faculty fired
• Anti-Intellectualism was in effect, discouraging people in getting advanced educations, drops in enrollment
• Women discouraged and numbers capped at 10%
• Military and Party were more popular, means to advance
How did the Nazis view women?
propagation of "master race"
• Promotion of motherhood as goal of female
education and female youth organization
• Discouragement of female higher education
Discouragement of jewelry, lipstick, makeup,
perfume, high-heel shoes, trousers
Impact of the Nazi's view on women
Rights for women such as…
• abortion and contraception
• Banning of reproductive freedom
• Would prove impossible to enforce
How did Nazi Germany try to increase the size of German families?
Germany would give working women six week paid
maternity leave
• Marriage loans of 1000 RM
Each child born would repay 25% of it.
• Paid for by taxes on single people and
childless couples
How did the Nazi's view on women become radicalized?
When throughout the war, children and women would be kidnapped from neighboring countries due to their aryan appearance.
Abortion made a capitol crime
30,000 forced abortions and sterilizations on grounds of
racial hygiene
How did the Nazis see women in the workforce?
• Another area of contradiction
• Only acceptable form of work was the
family farm
Women slowly pulled out from professional jobs:
• Hitler 1932: goal is to remove 800,000
women from workforce
• 1934, all married female doctors and civil
servants dismissed
• 1936, women removed as judges and
jury members
Gertrude SchlotzKlink
Oversee Nazi women policy and promotion of Nazi views on Women
Increase the League of German Girls
Encourage them away from professional ambitions and towards marriage
Economic realities of women out of the workforce
• Reality of labor force issues require female
participation
• 1933 11.5 million women employed
• 1939 12.8 million women employed
• Demands of war production and
conscription
How did women participate in Nazi Germany?
Staffing Lebensborn
• Nazi Block Wardens
• Taking advantage of looted goods
• Secretaries in SS and Gestapo
• 3200 served as SS concentration camp
guards
How were people overall discontent with the regime?
• Mostly on economic and material issues
• Shortages
How were peasants dissatisfied with the regime?
They lacked support despite promises
How were workers dissatisfied with the regime?
Had loss of bargaining rights when unions were closed,
shortages and forced attendance at Nazi
How were the middle dissatisfied with the regime?
A large majority were not disatisfied
How were people overall discontent with the regime?
• Mostly due to economic and material issues such as shortages
Who was blamed in the Nazi Regime?
• Most blamed the system or local Nazi
officials
• Rarely targeted Hitler
• Was seen as self-sacrificing
• Rarely broke into widespread or open
dissent
• No large scale demonstrations or
confrontations
What were key reasons for the lack of opposition?
Abolition of all political parties and independent organizations
Relentless propaganda
Culture of surveillance
Threat of terror
How was Hitler's Foreign Policy seen?
Positively (At least towards the beginning)
Hitler's success in foreign policy bolstered support for the
regime
Most accomplishments up to 1939 had strong support
Popularity was contingent though to avoidance of war
What major challenge in 1938 nearly caused the war to start a year early?
The Czech chrisis.
• Reports of depressed mood, listening to
foreign broadcasts
• Was a lack of enthusiasm for war
• Discouraging to the regime
How did Nazi Repression work?
1933, Special Courts and People's Courts was established
• People's Courts for major offense,
Special Courts for minor
• Staffed by Nazi judges
• Prosecution of derogatory remarks and
unpatriotic rumors
Why was there a lack of opposition in the Nazi regime?
• Divisions between SPD (Social Democratic Party) and KPD (Communist Party of Germany) before 1933
• Arrest, exile, and execution of leaders and
activists
• Illegality of independent institutions
• Block Wardens
Was there military opposition against the Nazi regime?
• Was the only real effective source of potential opposition
Had some concerns:
• 1934, elimination of unsupportive
leadership
• 1934, swear of oath to Hitler
• Foreign policy success undermine
opposition
• 1938, Czech crisis and near coup
• Only act in 1944
Nazi opposition to Versailles Treaty of 1919
One of opposition
Deeply resented Disarmament, War guilt clause reparations Border revision
What was Hitler’s foreign policy like?
1. End the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles 2. Unity of Germans in Germany (Völkish Germans) 3. Lebensraum (Living space)
What was Hitler’s foreign policy like?
2. Unity of Germans in Germany (Völkish Germans)
What was Hitler’s foreign policy like?
3. Lebensraum (Living space)
What was the Policy of Appeasement?
The desire to try and avoid such a devastating war at all costs.
How did the Policy of Appeasement work?
How did Hitler begin to oppose the
Became the "affronted peace-maker"
Hitler's skills: Anticipating the actions of others and trapping them in their own self-interest
1933: Call for disarmament
1933: Non aggression pact with Poland
Weakens France
1934: Assassination of Austrian fascist Englebert Dollfus (Notes: Fascist in an Italian way, imitates Mussolini)
What was the last real opportunity to stop German aggression and low cost?
Hitler’s remilitarization of the Rhineland, 19 battalions (19,000 soldiers) sent into Rhineland
Clear violation of Versailles Treaty Prohibition
France and Britain fail to act
What was the 1936 Spanish Civil War?
The first war between democracy and fascism
Coup attempt by democratic, socialist and even communist supporters on Fascists, coup fails and results in a civil war.
Italy really sends mass number of soldiers.
Germany sends the condor legion. Germans tanks fight Russian tanks, becomes a place to test new weapons
Guernica becomes a testing ground, how to destroy a city
1936, the end of German International Isolation
1936, The Rome-Berlin Axis
1936, Japan and Germany sign anti-comintern pact
Italy and eastern European dictatorships join in following years
Italy and eastern European dictatorships join in following years
Attempt at alliance with Great Britain fails
Treaty of non-interference with the British
What was the Year of Radicalization
1938,
Hitler's health declines causing him fear
Moving up of timeline for war
Göring takes over economy
Removal of more cautious military leaders
Kristallnacht and increasing anti-semitism
Anschluss with Austria
When Austria was bullied by Hitler to unite with Germany,
What happened with Czechoslovakia in 1938
Hitler’s biggest gamble yet.
Hitler demands annexation of Sudetenland
Chamberlain rejects
War seems inevitable
Mussolini proposes international conference to resolve issue
Germany, Italy, France and Great Britain
Neither the Czechs or Soviet invited
Germany granted Sudetenland in exchange for security of remaining Czech state "Appeasement
becomes humiliating for the British and French
Result of Czechoslovakia
Conservative/fascist government of central and east Europe all sign political and economic agreements
The military and German public relieved
Hitler and the Nazis disappointed, no war occurred
Hitler would later annex the rest of it
Fate of the occupation
After the occupation of Sudetenland, Hitler gins up controversy over Slovakia
March 15, orders occupation of entire Czechoslovakia
Britain, France, USSR do nothing France and Great Britain resolve to act if Nazis act again
1939 - The Polish Crisis
Hitler demands unification of Danzig and west Prussia with Germany
Great Britain and France publicly state that they will use military force to support Polish independence
Explain the purpose of the Nazi-Soviet Pact
Hitler desire to secure eastern flank in case of war with west
Hitler confidence that France and Britain will not fight alone
Stalin
Failures of popular front
Temporary alliance to buy time
Recovery of former Russian territory
1939 Invasion of Poland
Operation Himmler
Germany invades
Great Britain and France declare war
Hitler's Shock
Why did Germany go to war?
Richard Evans: Nazi ideology as crucial factor
Ian Kershaw: German expansion through war was part of plan
Adam Tooze: Nazi economic made war inevitable
All previous gambles had paid off
Why Allies declare war
Felt they had little choice after Munich
Anita Prazomowskia: Not really a fight for Poland, but indicating that Germany's actions were unacceptable.
Up to 1939, Chamberlin's thoughts were that Hitler's motives were rational
Explain Blitzkrieg, what was it?
Blitzkrieg was the action of combined arms warfare
Coordination of armor, motorized infantry and Air Power
Avoid or destroy enemy fixed position
Get behind enemy lines
Cut off communication and supply
Destroy morale, cause confusion and terror
How was Blitzkrieg used as a military strategy?
Germany had lost the war of attrition, lack of resources
for long war in the past
Need to win any future war quickly
Germany is easily surrounded
Lacking in sufficient resources
War must be fought sooner rather than later
Note 
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