Nazism

• Nazi ideology emphasized the importance of race and blood purity, with Jews being considered an inferior race.
• Hitler’s propaganda minister was Goebbels, who was responsible for the Nazi media and the Nazi Party’s public image
• Germany fought the first world war (1914-1918) against the allies ( england, russia, france)
• The allies, strengthened by the US entry in 1917, won, defeating germany and the central powers in november 1918
• Due to the treaty of Versailles, Germany lost it’s overseas colonies, a tenth of it’s population, 13 percent of it’s territories, 75 percent of it’s iron and 26 percent of it’s coal to France, Poland, Denmark and Lithuania
• The Weimar republic was established on November 9th 1918 when Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated from his throne
• The War Guilt Clause held Germany responsible for the war and damages the Allied countries suffered. Germany was forced to pay compensation amounting to £6 billion
• Socialists, Catholics and Democrats were called the November Criminals because they supported the Weimar republic and became easy targets to attack in the conservative nationalist circle
• German investments and industrial recovery were totally dependent on short term loans, largely from the USA
• The Weimar republic saw twenty different cabinets lasting on an average 239 days and a liberal use of article 48 which gave the president the powers to impose emergency, suspend civil rights and rule by decree
• Hitler was born in 1889. During the first world war he acted as a messenger in the front, became a corporal, and earned medals for bravery
• Hitler renamed the German Worker’s party as the National Socialist German Worker’s party. This party came to be known as Nazi Party
• Hitler promised to build a strong nation, undo the injustice of the Versailles Treaty, and restore the dignity of the German people
• Hitler promised employment for those seeking work and a secure future for the youth
• Hitler promised to weed out all foreign influences and resist all foreign conspiracies against Germany
• The red banners with the Swastika, the Nazi salute, and the ritualised rounds of applause after the speeches were all part of Hitler’s spectacle power
• On 30 January 1933, President Hidenburg offeres the Chancellorship, the highest position in the cabinet of ministers, to Hitler
• The fire decree of 28 February 1933 indefinite suspended civic rights like freedom of speech, press and assembly that had been guaranteed by the Weimar constitution
• On 3 march 1933, the famous Enabling Act was passed. This act established dictatorship in Germany. All political parties and trade unions were banned except for the Nazi party and its affiliates
• Special surveillance and security forces were created to control society in ways that the nazis wanted. These included the Gestapo(secret state police), the SS(the protection squads), criminal police and the Security Service(SD)
• Hitler assigned the responsibility of economic recovery to the economist Hjalmar Schacht. This project produced the famous german superhighways and the people’s car, the Volkswagen.
• Hitler pulled out of the League of Nations in 1933, reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936, and integrated Austria and Germany in 1938 under the slogan “One people, One empire, and One leader”.
• In September 1939 (second world war), Germany invaded Poland. This started a war with France and England.
• In September 1940, a Tripartite Pact was signed between Germany, Italy and Japan, strengthening Hitler’s claim to international powers.
• The USA had resisted involvement in the war. But it could not stay out of the war for long. Japan was expanding its power in the east. When Japan extended its support to Hitler and bombed the US base at Pearl Harbor, the US entered the Second World War. The war ended in May 1945 with Hitler's defeat and the US dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima in Japan.
• Nazi ideology was synonymous with Hitler's worldview. According to this there was no equality between people, but only a racial hierarchy. In this view blond, blue-eyed, Nordic German Aryans were at the top, while Jews were located at the lowest rung. They came to be regarded as an anti-race, the arch-enemies of the Aryans.
• Hitler’s racism was borrowed from thinkers like Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer.
• The Nazi argument was simple: the strongest race would survive and the weak ones would perish. The Aryan race was the inest. It had to retain its purity, become stronger and dominate the world.
• Nazi’s wanted only a society of ‘pure and healthy Nordic Aryans’. They alone were considered ‘desirable’. Jews were not the only community classified as ‘undesirable’. Many Gypsies and black living in Nazi Germany were considered as racial ‘inferiors’ who threatened the biological purity of the ‘superior Aryan’ race.
• From 1933 to 1938 the Nazis terrorised, pauperised and segregated the jews, compelling them to leave the country.
• Occupied Poland was divided up. Polish children who looked like Aryans were forcibly snatched from their mothers and examined by "race experts'. If they passed the race tests they were raised in German families and if not, they were deposited in orphanages where most perished.
• Hitler was fanatically interested in the youth of the country. He felt that a strong Nazi society could be established only by teaching children Nazi ideology. All schools were 'cleansed' and 'purified'. This meant that teachers who were Jews or seen as 'politically unreliable' were dismissed. Germans and Jews could not sit together. Subsequently, 'undesirable children' - Jews, the physically handicapped, Gypsies - were thrown out of schools. 
• School textbooks were rewritten. Racial science was introduced to justify Nazi ideas of race. Children were taught to be loyal and submissive, hate Jews, and worship Hitler. Hitler believed that boxing could make children iron hearted, strong and masculine.
• Ten-year-olds had to enter Jungvolk. At 14, all boys had to join the Nazi youth organisation

  • Hitler Youth - where they learnt to worship war, glorify aggression and violence, condemn democracy, and hate Jews, communists, Gypsies and all those categorised as 'undesirable'.
• The Youth League of the Nazis was found in 1922. Four years later it was renamed Hitler Youth.
• Boys wer to be aggressive, masculine and steel hearted, girls were told that they had to become good mothers and rear pure-bloode children. 
• Women who bore racially undesirable children were punished and those who produced racially desirable children were awarded. They were given favoured treatment in hospitals and were also entitled to concessions in shops and on theatre tickets and railway fares. To encourage women to produce many children, Honour Crosses were awarded. A bronze cross was given for four children, silver for six and gold for eight or more.
• The Nazi regime used language and media with care. Nazis never used the words 'kill' or 'murder' in their official communications. Mass killings were termed special treatment, final solution (for the Jews), euthanasia (for the disabled), selection and disinfections. 'Evacuation' meant deporting people to gas chambers. The gas chambers were labelled 'disinfection-areas, and looked like bathrooms equipped with fake shower heads.