The Rise of Fascism, Prelude to WWII, and Origins of the Holocaust

What is Fascism?

  • A state should be governed by a specific national identity.

National Identity and Nationalism

  • What constitutes a "national identity"?
  • Exploration of the concept of nationalism.

The Doctrine of Fascism

  • Written in 1927 by Benito Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile.
  • Benito Mussolini:
    • Initially an Italian socialist.
    • Opposed Italy's involvement in World War I.
    • Later changed his stance, leading to expulsion from the Italian Socialist Party.
    • Developed the doctrine of fascism.

Political Ideologies

  • Communism:
    • Prioritizes equality over freedom.
    • Prioritizes transnational identity over national or individual identity.
    • Prioritizes collectivism over individualism.
  • Liberalism:
    • Prioritizes freedom over equality.
    • Prioritizes individualism over collective identity.
    • Prioritizes private property over collective ownership.

Fascism

  • Positioned alongside Communism and Liberalism in terms of political ideologies.

Prelude to World War II

Table of Contents

  • Fascist Worldviews
  • Hitler’s Challenge to the European Order
  • Europe in Context
  • The Nazi-Soviet Pact

Europe in Context

  • The state of Europe before World War II.

State of the World (Recap)

  • The Treaty of Versailles was losing support, viewed as unfair to Germans.
  • The United States did not ratify the treaty, signaling unwillingness to be involved in Europe.
  • Britain was experiencing significant war weariness.

Japan

  • Emerged from World War I as an Asian great power.
  • Impacted severely by the Great Depression.
    • Rise of Nationalists and Militarists.
  • Faced a rapidly growing population with limited territory.
  • Internal disagreements on strategic direction:
    • Northern Strategy (favored by the army): potential expansion into Siberia via Outer Mongolia.
    • Southern Strategy (favored by the navy): focus on southward expansion.

Northern Strategy (Japan)

  • Target: Duter Mongolia and the Baikal area up to the Yab Mou Range
  • Potential territories include: Koyarsk and Central Siberia

Southern Strategy (Japan)

  • Aimed at expansion towards:
    • Korea, Manchuria, parts of China, and Southeast Asia.
    • Islands in the Pacific including the Philippines, Guam, and others controlled by the United States and Britain.

France

  • Only country enforcing the Treaty of Versailles.
  • Significant domestic turmoil and polarization.
  • Military thinking still rooted in World War I, with a defensive focus.

France's Defensive Strategy

  • Emphasis on defense due to the lessons learned from WWI.
  • Construction of the Maginot Line: robust defenses on the border with Germany.
  • The Maginot Line did not extend to the border with Belgium.

Discussion

  • What are some other characteristics of the state of the world?

Fascist Thought

  • A brief look into fascist thought.

Four Interconnected Characteristics of Fascism

  • Nationality is an essential characteristic of identity.
    • Racial/Ethnic hierarchy.
    • Nationalism.
    • Othering.
  • The individual is just an extension of the state.
    • State > Individual.
  • A strong military is essential for the expansion of the state.
    • Militarism.
  • Innate victimization of the identity.
    • Victimization.

Discussion: Fascism's Appeal

  • How might those characteristics make fascism appealing to people?

Hitler’s Thought

  • Contradictory and pragmatic, with power as the most important role in Hitler’s worldview.
  • Built on power and racial hierarchy.
    • Germans, Japanese, and British at the top.
    • Slavs equated with Jewish people at the bottom.
    • Communism equated with “world jewry”.
    • Views of Japanese were inconsistent and changed over time.

Racial Propaganda in Nazi Germany

  • Anti-semitic messages equating Jewish people with misfortune.
  • The portrayal of Jewish people as "sub-human" or "lesser-men" (Der Untermensch).
  • Propaganda blaming Jewish people for the war.

Fascist Thought: Hitler

  • Four future global powers:
    • Germany
    • Japan
    • Britain
    • America
  • Hitler despised America.

Hitler's View on Americans

  • Believed that American soldiers could not fight like heroes.
  • Viewed America as a decayed country with racial and social inequalities.
  • Expressed feelings of hatred and deep repugnance towards Americanism.
  • Called Americans stupid.

Fascist Thought: Hitler (cont.)

  • Land for the growing German population (Lebensraum) eventually came to dominate Hitler’s Foreign Policy.

Lebensraum

  • German term referring to living space. Desire to expand German territory into eastern Europe, displacing or eliminating existing populations to provide land and resources for Germans.

Spazio Vitale

  • Italian term for living space. Equivalent to the German concept of Lebensraum that reflected Italy’s desire for colonial expansion.

Japanese Expansionist Plans

  • Japanese empire sought to dominate areas throughout Asia and the Pacific.

How Three Totalitarian Powers Would Divide Up the World

  • Division of the world among Germany, Italy, and Japan based on their concept of "Lebensraum."

Hitler's Challenge

  • A persistent challenge to the European order.

Hitler’s Strategy

  • Always couch foreign policy in equality for Germany.
  • Every speech began with a list of grievances of things that prevent from making Germany as great as it once was.
  • Blitzkrieg is more than just a military strategy, it was also a diplomatic strategy.
  • Isolate countries diplomatically and strike rapidly.

Pre-Munich Events

  • Spanish Civil War: 1936-39
  • Japan invades China: 1937
  • Anschluss (Annexation of Austria): Mar 1938
  • Munich Agreement: Sep 1938

Post-Munich Events

  • Sudetenland assigned to Germany: Oct 1938
  • Germany invades the rest of Czechoslovakia: Mar 14, 1939
  • France and Britain agree to protect Polish Independence: Mar 31, 1939
  • Nazi-Soviet Pact: Aug 1939

The Wannsee Protocol and the Final Solution

  • An Overview

Introduction: Mass Atrocities: Genocide

  • Genocide: the deliberate killing of a large group of people of a particular nation, ethnic group, race, or religion with the intent to destroy that group.
    • Coined in 1944 by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin.
    • First recognized as a crime in 1946 by UN General Assembly.

The Holocaust

  • 10% of people aged 18-39 have never heard the word “Holocaust” before.
  • 63% did not know 6 million Jews died.
  • Over 50% thought the total death toll was under 2 million. The actual number was 12 million.

Anti-Semitism

  • History of anti-semitism in Europe
    • Romans destroyed Second Temple→ Jewish Diaspora (70 CE)
    • Attacks on Jews during Crusades
    • Accused of poisoning water supplies during Black Death
    • 16th century ghettos
    • Spanish Inquisition
    • France in late 1800s (Dreyfus Affair)
    • Pogroms in Russia

German Anti-Semitism

  • Hitler blames Jews for hardships in Germany
  • 1930s: Nuremberg Laws
    • Deny Jews basic civil rights
    • Mixed marriages forbidden
  • Random attacks on Jew & Jewish businesses
  • Kristallnacht (“night of broken glass”) 1938
  • 1941: all Jews must wear yellow Star of David with the word “Jew”

German Anti-Semitism

  • Hitler blames Jews for hardships in Germany
  • 1930s: Nuremberg Laws
    • Deny Jews basic civil rights
    • Mixed marriages forbidden
  • Random attacks on Jew & Jewish businesses
  • Kristallnacht (“night of broken glass”) 1938
  • 1941: all Jews must wear yellow Star of David with the word “Jew”

The Nuremberg Laws

  • Defined who was considered German, Mixed or Jewish based on ancestry.

Inspiration for Nuremberg Laws?

  • The Naturalization Act of 1790: any Alien [foreigner] being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen
  • People v. Hall (1854): Chinese people, like Native Americans and Africans, cannot testify or sue in court
  • Civil Rights Act of 1866: all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians…are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.
  • 1882: suspended Chinese immigration for 10 years (later extended)
  • 1899 Insular Cases: the people of newly acquired territories (Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico) would not be granted citizenship
  • Immigration Act of 1924: set quotas based on country of origin, greatly restricting immigrants not from Western Europe

The Inspiration from Jim Crow

  • The “one drop rule”: anyone with even one ancestor of black ancestry would be defined as black
  • Jim Crow Laws (after the Civil War): African Americans=second class citizens
    • Restrictions on voting
    • Segregation (schools, railcars, buses, drinking fountains, bathrooms, restaurants, etc)
  • Miscegenation (marriage between races) banned in 30 states
  • A black person cannot be buried on lands where whites are buried

Hitler's Prophecy (1942)

  • Hitler stated that if international Jewish financiers succeeded in plunging the nations into another world war, the result would be the annihilation of the Jewish people in Europe.

The Wannsee Protocol

  • A meeting of high ranking political and military members to lay the groundwork for “the final solution.”
    At the beginning of the discussion Chief of the Security Police and of the SD, SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich, reported that the Reich Marshal had appointed him delegate for the preparations for the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe and pointed out that this discussion had been called for the purpose of clarifying fundamental questions. The wish of the Reich Marshal to have a draft sent to him concerning organizational, factual and material interests in relation to the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe makes necessary an initial common action of all central offices immediately concerned with these questions in order to bring their general activities into line. The Reichsführer-SS and the Chief of the German Police (Chief of the Security Police and the SD) was entrusted with the official central handling of the final solution of the Jewish question without regard to geographic borders. The Chief of the Security Police and the SD then gave a short report of the struggle which has been carried on thus far against this enemy, the essential points being the following: a) the expulsion of the Jews from every sphere of life of the German people, b) the expulsion of the Jews from the living space of the German people.

Major Deportations to Extermination Camps

  • 1942-1944

Map of Jewish Ghettos

  • European cities with Jewish ghettos during the Holocaust

Jewish Ghettos

The “Final Solution”

  • 1939: Jews deported to ghettos in Poland
    • Crowded, unsanitary, little food
  • 1941 Wannsee Conference
    • Discussion of implementing “Final Solution”
  • Schutzstaffel (SS) begins massive killing operations
    • Overseen by Heinrich Himmler & Hermann Göring
  • Millions of Jews deported from ghettos to concentration camps
    • Many killed along the way

Map of Extermination Camps

  • Location of extermination camps throughout Europe during World War II

Holocaust

  • Jewish prisoners arriving at Auschwitz

Items Confiscated from Prisoners

  • Rings from Jewish prisoners

Labor

  • Prisoners in concentration camps were used as forced laborers, often worked literally to death.

Auschwitz

  • The gate to Auschwitz, which reads “work will set you free”.

Medical Experiments

  • Medical experiments of Joseph Mengele to promote Nazi racial theories

Liberation

  • 1945

The Nuremberg Trials: 1945-46

  • Trial of 24 Nazi leaders
    • All found guilty
    • 12 sentenced to death (10 executed)

Short Holocaust video

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crkVNLgPPV0

American Nazi rally Video if time

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC1MNGFHR58

Operation Barbarossa

Table of contents

  • Background Information
  • Beginning of the Invasion
  • The Shift
  • Impact on WWII

Background Information (Europe Aug 1939)

  • Germany
  • Poland
  • Soviet Union

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact

  • German Motivation
    • Didn’t want to fight a two-front war
    • Wanted more territory (Poland)
  • Soviet Motivations
    • Wanted more territory (Poland, Finland, Baltics)
    • Skeptical of western powers
  • Non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. It also included a secret addendum to split up Eastern Europe between the two

Division of Eastern Europe

  • Division of Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence.

British Cartoon

  • The Scum of the Earth

German Invasions: Sept 1, ‘39-June 22, ‘41

  • 09/01/39 Poland
  • 04/09/40 Denmark, Norway
  • 05/10/40 Belgium, France
  • 07/10/40 Britain (Air Battle)
  • 04/06/41 Yugoslavia, Greece
  • 05/20/41 Crete
  • 06/22/41 Barbarossa

Barbarossa

  • Nazis revived Barbarossa, HRE, (1155-1190) as an anti-Slav - nationalistic trope, due to his conquest of the Slavic people.

Mein Kamf, Hitler 1925

  • If new territory were to be acquired in Europe it must have been mainly at Russia's cost ….

EXHIBITION IN 1937

  • The Führer mobilized the strengths of the German people against the forces of Jewish-Bolshevist subversion.

Soviet Spies

  • Harro Schulze-Boysen
  • Richard Sorge

Warned Stalin

  • Prime Minister of Britain Winston Churchill
  • German ambassador in Moscow Count von der Schulenberg

# Stalin's Response