Wwii Mid Term, Fall 2005

Andy Wilson History 443/543 Mid-Term October 14, 2005

I. Major Essay In order to understand the rise of the Nazis one needs to understand the factors that led to their emergence. The Nazis did not appear out of the blue and dramatically seize power in a coup; they instead stealthily and quit brutishly worked within the existing German political system over a series of years. Yet their rise was not all due to their own cunning, a series of economic collapses and a weak government greatly helped them on their way. To better understand the Rise of the Nazis, one needs to look back before the First World War, to the creation of Germany as a nation state. With the creation of the nation of German in 1871, Bismarck pulled together the many different principalities of Germany and created a united federation. Yet this new German state came together not before the Industrial Revolution but at its height, creating many stresses for the new nation. Old morals and traditions of aristocratic Germany were quickly being replaced by new bourgeois values, habits and modes of behavior of the rapidly growing middle class; yet at the same time the new class of industrial laborers challenged those of the middle class by organizing in massive political groups such as the Social Democrats. German society did not become a nation in a very stable condition. Internal conflicts between classes, religions and even regions in Germany prior to unification were carried on into the political system of Bismarck.

The legacy of Bismarck’s regime is the creation of very strong nationalism as well as large amounts of racism and anti-Semitism. The Nazis would use this latent nationalism and anti-Semitism in order to further their own goals. Hitler constantly played upon the nationalism of the Germans by calling back to the days of Bismarck. He would play upon the nostalgia of the German people by reminding them how strong Germany had been under Bismarck and then promise them that under the Nazis party Germany could be returned to its previous glory. Hitler would also play off the antiSemitism of many Germans by declaring that the Jews were to blame for Germany’s lose in WWI. The legacy of Germany’s emergence as a nation would prove vital in the Nazis parties’ seizure of power. After the German defeat in WWI, these two factors along with economic and social upheaval would create an atmosphere that was ripe for the emergence of the Nazis party. During the postwar period (especially 1919-1924) Germany was plunged into an era of political terror and instability, where extreme parties of the left and right were vying for control. With the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm, left and centrist political parties created the Weimar Republic. On July 31, 1919 the constitution of the Weimar republic was written, which allowed for a radical system of proportional representation. This led to the creation of many political parties (more than 35 by 1928). With many political parties, the government tended to be a coalition with short-lived cabinets and ministries left in disarray, leading to the instability of Weimar. Between 1919 and 1923 the Weimar Republic experienced nine cabinet changes. There were also a large number of assassinations and coups by both the left and the right. The Weimar Republics lack of

political stability and its inability to deal with the economic crises’ that plagued Germany in the inter-war years led to the eventual decline and failure of democracy. This ineptitude and instability which made the Weimar Republic ill-equipped to deal with the economic and political turmoil that would sweep Germany in the interwar years also made it unable to cope with the rise of the Nazis. The Nazis could have easily been destroyed by the much the larger and stronger parties of the Centrists, Social Democrats and Communists but each group never took the Nazis seriously. They were convinced that the Nazis were a fringe group that would never gain the political clout necessary to overthrow them. Hitler and the party drew local attention but the party was confined mainly to Munich. This all changed in 1923-1924 with the Beer Hall Putsch and Hitler’s trial. In November of 1923 Hitler and his followers, inspired by Mussolini’s march on Rome, conspired to seize Bavaria and then march on Berlin. The Beer Hall Putsch as it came to be known backfired on Hitler and resulted in his being thrown in jail. Yet Hitler turned his trial into a political success. He was able to gain national press coverage of his views concerning the various enemies of Germany. The failure of the Beer Hall Putsch propelled Hitler into the national spotlight and for the first time made him a recognizable figure throughout Germany. The Beer Hall Putsch and the trial may have made Hitler famous in Germany but it was truly his ideas and the Nazis parties’ ability to campaign that made Hitler so popular. Hitler wooed the people while at the same time telling them what they wanted to hear. Hitler provided the German people with a spectacle. Rallies consisted of SS men marching and praising Hitler to the grandiose music of Wagner. But his popularity

among the German people mainly came from his attacking issues which were seen as hurting or holding back Germany. Hitler’s message appealed to all Germans who were chafing under the Weimar Republic and the Versailles Treaty. The Versailles Treaty, which in Germany was seen as unfair and the cause the cause of many problems was repeatedly attacked by Hitler. Many Germans felt held down by the dictates of the Versailles Treaty and wished to repeal it and make Germany strong again. Hitler grew popular because not only hated the treaty but wished to nullify it. The Weimar Republic faired no better. With its instability and ineptitude in dealing with hyperinflation and the crash of the stock market, the Weimar Republic was disliked by many Germans. Hitler labeled the Weimar Republic a traitor because it had signed the Versailles Treaty and pointed out how Communist groups in the government were trying to subvert the people. Hitler also played on the German people’s fears and sense of betrayal by blaming the Jews and Communists for Germany’s defeat in WWI. He told the German people that the Jews and Communists had betrayed them during the war and that they were also at fault for the economic instability of the inter-war years. With the burning of the Reichstag on February 27, 1933, Hitler was able to effectively destroy the Weimar Republic and eliminate any threats to the Nazis. After the burning all other parties were eliminated because the Nazis deemed them to be subversive and dangerous to the German people, and the Jews became second class citizens. By the end of 1933 the Nazis had effectively seized control of Germany and the Third Reich had begun. But the rise of Hitler is not uniquely German nor was he unique. Certainly there were factors that facilitated his rise to power but they did not make Hitler. Hitler was the

product of an all too common human flaw, a desire for power. Evil men have occurred throughout human history but they did not share the same circumstances. There have been mad men who where born with silver spoons in their mouths, such as Nero. Stalin is the opposite end of that spectrum, coming from a poor background. Hitler, Stalin and Nero all came from different backgrounds and had a different set of circumstances but they were all murderous despots who desired power at any cost; and when they had it were willing to do anything to keep it. Hitler is not the product of unique circumstances; many other Germans went through similar experiences as his and did not become murderous dictators. Hitler’s problem was one of humanities greatest problems, the desire for power. II. Lesser Essays 1. From 1933 to 1939 the Adolf Hitler pursued an aggressive but shrewd foreign policy that was intended to return Germany to the prominence that it had enjoyed before the First World War and create a new German empire. This foreign policy consisted of destroying the Treaty of Versailles as well as returning ethnic Germans to Germany, gaining Lebensraum (living space) in the East for the German Volk, economic selfsufficiency, creating a greater German Reich to dominate Europe, and removing all “Judeo-Bolshevik” elements in the East. Economic self-sufficiency came into effect under Hitler’s Four-Year Plan and the removal of Eastern “Judeo-Bolshevism” was not realized until the invasion of the Soviet Union but the other three were being obtained prior to the outbreak of war. These policies had been stated in Hitler’s book Mein Kampf, long before he obtained power, but they were simply ideas. It was not

until the rise of the Nazis Party that Hitler’s machinations for European dominance became reality. Beginning in 1933, Hitler took his first giant step forward in regards to his foreign policy by destroying the Versailles Treaty. During the Geneva Disarmament Conference, Hitler proposed disbanding his armed forces if the other European powers did the same. When the other countries did not accept, as Hitler knew they would, he withdrew from the conference and the League of Nations. In March of 1935 Hitler began rebuilding the Luftwaffe, as a defensive action. Seeing that the other European powers did nothing, he began rebuilding the Army one week later. The final nail in the coffin of the Versailles Treaty was in March of 1936 when German troops reentered the Rhineland and remilitarized it. In 1938 Hitler moved to obtain lands that consisted of ethnic Germans as well as increasing German lands. He began with the Anschluss of Austria, which received only mild protest form the international community. Hitler’s next move was into the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. Europe appeared on the Brink of war until Mussolini and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain brokered an agreement with Hitler under the Munich Pact, which gave the Sudetenland to the Germans. Seeing the weakness of the Europeans, Hitler took the rest of Czechoslovakia under the guise of stopping ethnic tensions. This was the final piece of territory which Hitler would take without a fight because the European powers saw Hitler’s true colors. Hitler next looked to the only piece of pre-WWI German territory that he had not retaken, the Polish Corridor. In 1939, Hitler signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with Stalin, agreeing to a

partition of Poland. On September 1, 1939 Hitler attacked Poland and quickly overwhelmed it, starting WWII. With the ability of hind sight it is easy to see that appeasement was a failure when dealing with Hitler’s foreign policy. Not only were they incapable of satisfying Hitler’s desire for more land but they allowed the German armed forces to rearm and become a true threat to Europe. Yet, for European leaders, such as Neville Chamberlain, there was no way of knowing what Hitler’s true intentions were. They desired to avoid the horrors of WWI and by giving Hitler what he wanted they believed that war could be evaded. Men like Neville Chamberlain were not weak; they simply believed that Hitler could be dealt with through peaceful means. Looking back on the era it is easy to see the errors of the European leaders but for many of them appeasement was the most appealing option.

4. Anti-Semitism appeared in Germany and Europe far before the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. Beginning in the Middle Ages, Christians throughout Europe blamed the Jews for all sorts of calamities, attacking them because of their religion and accusing them of being witches and agents of the Devil. By the time of the establishment of the Bismarkian Reich these anti-Semitic feelings had changed from attacking Jews due to their religion, because many Jews had converted to Christianity, to attacking them based on race. These feelings began to be strongly felt in Germany in the late 19th century with the formation of fringe social and political groups, under such men as Adolf Stocker, Max Von Stonnenberg, and Ernst Henrici, who believed that the Jews were the cause of Germany’s problems and that they should be removed. There were also a large number

of writers, artists and intellectuals at the time who espoused the idea of racial superiority and separation of the races, such as Richard Wagner, Wilhelm Marr, or Alfred Schuler. Anti-Semitism however was in no way unique to Germany, in fact prior to WWI Germany housed a cultured Jewish community and lacked a violent overt or political anti-Semitic movement. It was in nations such as France, where the Dreyfus affair led to massive anti-Semitism, and Russia, where Tsarist forces had been murdering large numbers of Jews since 1905, that the strongest anti-Semitic movements of Europe could be found in the years leading up to WWI. With the German loss in WWI and the economic woes that followed, antiSemitism began to gain strength in Germany. Many Germans, such as Ludendorff, believed that the Jews had stabbed Germany in the back during the war resulting in Germany’s defeat. They believed that the Jews led subversive institutions, agreed to the Versailles Treaty, and set up the Weimar Republic. In fact, Jews who participated in revolutionary movements acted not as Jews but as revolutionaries; and the leading Germans that signed the Versailles Treaty were not Jews but Germans. The Jews also became the scapegoat for the economic problems, hyperinflation and high unemployment, that struck Germany in the years following WWI. With the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis in the 1920’s and 1930’s, antiSemitism became a central aspect of German politics. For many of the German antiSemites leading up to and after WWI, the Jews were a convenient scapegoat. They saw Jews as a problem but they lacked an emotional motivation for action. In the Case of Hitler, anti-Semitism involved much deeper roots. Prior to his experience in WWI Hitler’s anti-Semitism was very similar to that of other Germans, it had an abstract

almost, theoretical quality to it. It was not until the end of WWI when Hitler’s hatred of Jews became visceral, personal and extreme. Believing that the Jews had stabbed Germany in the back during the war, Hitler’s malice towards the Jews became real. No longer were the Jews just an impediment to the German people; in the eyes of Hitler they were now an enemy who had attacked Germany. An enemy, he felt, which should be destroyed.