Rise of Nazi Party

Paul von Hindenburg

• Field Marshal during WWI

• Elected President of Germany in 1925

• First four years of presidency was the peak of Weimar Republic

• Was silent on/about many important and polarizing political issues

• Elected Hitler as Chancelor

Adolf Hitler

• Austian

• Chancellor of Germany

• Head of Nazi Party

• Responsible for death of Millions of Jews

• Mastermind

• Wrote Mein Kamph

• Manipulated the law to give him full power

Enabling Act

• A month after Reichstang Fires

• Made it legal for the Nazi party to arrest political enemies and threats

Reichstag

• German Senate or legislative branch

• People vote for party members and the percentage of the vote a party gets the percentage of seats it holds in the recihstag

Center Party (BPV)

• slightly conservative

• catholic ideologies

• pro democracy

• focused on traditional family and socital factors

Social Democrats (SPD)

• left leaning

• supported the german republic

• loyalty to germany

• creating more jobs and space for germans

• supporting unions

• freedom of press

• middle class oriented

National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) 

• Nazi Party

• National Self Determination

• Against TOV

• Only germans should be citizens

• Facist extremist group

• race and space ideology

Communist Party of Germany (KPD) 

• Communists

• Extremist group

• wanted everyone equal to one another

• enemies of the capitallists and facists

• government should own all communal and industrialized buildings

Reichstag Fire

• Feb 1933

• Blamed Communist party

• reichstag building burned almost completely

• perpetrator admitted their crime but were ignored

Night of Long Knives

• killing of 200+ SA/stormtrooper leaders

• eliminated internal conflict and threats to hitlers power

• hidden from the public then presented as a heroic thing to do

• SA seen as thugs to the public

• leader of SA was a homosexual (Rohm)

Malicious Practices Act

• Dissagreeing with hitler or the Nazis was a crime

• all political parties but the nazis outlawed

• those accused of making fun of the government could be arrested or sent to a concentration camp

Volksgemeinschaft

• National Community

• Women: be wives, have children, raise them to follow these standards

• Men: go to war, serve hitler, provide for their family

• “national and divine destiny”

Mein Kampf

• the book hitler wrote while in prison after his failed coupe

• outlined his plans for germany under nazi rule

Dachau

• One of the first and longest running conentration camps of nazi Germany

• filled with political enemies and communists after the reichstag fire

Great Depression

• 1929-1933

• world wide depression hit germany hard after they just got out of more ecomic instability

Article 48 and emergency decrees

• Emergency decrees suspended every part of the consitutuon dealing with personal freedoms indefinately

• Article 48 gave the president the freedom to act without the reichstag in times of emergency

Weimar Republic

• 1918-33

• Democracy

• large amount of social freedoms

• greatly impacted by depression and inflation

• extremist groups fighting with government

• calm before the storm

Eugenics - “positive” vs. “negative”

• Positive = encouraging breeding a superior race (marriage loan program)

• Negative = “neutralizing racially inferior”, sterilization, making intermarriage between Non aryans and aryans illegal'

• 1933 it is legal to sterilize anyone who didn’t seem fit

• Inspired by USA

Propaganda

• Information that this is intended to persuade and audience accept a particular idea or cause often by using biased material or by stirring up emotion

Joseph Goebbels

• Head of RMPE

• One of hitlers closest followers

• Cheif propagandist for Nazi party

Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment

• in charge of all media

• Sensors all media

• creates holidays

• changes any evidence of jews in names

• helps naming new organizations

• propaganda creation

Nuremberg Laws

• Sep 1935

• Required all German citizens to have “german blood”

• Not able to get a visa with no citizenship

• Set sharp rules about Jew’s interactions with Germans

• How to classify people with Jewish and German blood

Kristallnacht

• a pogram

• State-mandated violence

• against Jews

• nov 1938

• polish jew shot a member of the embassy

• arested 30000 Jewish men

• destroyed thousands of buisnessses

• kickstarted government violence against jews

• very open to public and press

Hitler Youth

• Highschool age

• buidling up soldiers

• like scouts

• rat out family members

• racial and gender ideology

German Girls

• domestic skills

• limited excersize

• racial and gender ideology

• rat out family members