Nazis Germany Political Science Prof.

Martin Sviatko

Abstract

In the world today, we view extremist ideologies often driven by adherence

to religious doctrine or domination by an ethnic group. However, this kind of

extremism is not a new phenomenon. Beginning in 1933, the Nazi Party and their

leader – Adolf Hitler pursued a racist ideology that would restructure the world along

racial lines. Eventually, the ideology led to the second World War, countless war

crimes and crimes against humanity. Nazis Germany is chosen as our topic due to

the fact that we want to show everyone that racism can only lead to catastrophe, just

like the loss of 60 million people during the World War II.

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Nazis Germany Political Science Prof. Martin Sviatko

Table of Contents
I. The Rise of Hitler and Nazis Germany ..................................................... 3
i. Background ............................................................................................ 3
ii. Adolf Hitler ............................................................................................ 4
1. Early Life ............................................................................................ 5
2. Early Nazi Years ................................................................................. 8
3. Rise to Power .................................................................................... 11

II. World War II ........................................................................................ 13

i. Militant Foreign Policy (1933 – 1939) ................................................. 13
ii. Fight to Dominate Europe (1939 – 1945) ............................................ 15
iii. Systematic Murder of European Jews .................................................. 18
iv. Denazification ...................................................................................... 20

III. Nazi Policies ......................................................................................... 22

i. Nazi Germany and Jews ....................................................................... 23
ii. Economy Policies ................................................................................. 25
iii. Nazi Party Platform .............................................................................. 26

IV. Legacy .................................................................................................. 28

V. Conclusion ............................................................................................... 32 10/30/2018

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 Nazis Germany Political Science Prof. Martin Sviatko

I. The Rise of Hitler and Nazis Germany

i. Background

From 1919 to 1933, Germany was known as the Weimar Republic, a republic

with semi-presidential system. The government was ruled by a president alongside

a prime minister and a cabinet – with the latter being responsible to the legislature

of the country. During the time, Germany faced numerous problems economically

and politically.

The National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) or Nazi Party was

founded in 1920, the renamed successor of an earlier part called German Workers’

Party (DAP). The party platform included the destruction of the Weimar Republic,

rejection of strong central government, increased living space of German people,

formation of a national community based on race and racial cleansing via the active

suppression of Jews, who would be stripped of their citizenship and civil rights.

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Nazis Germany Political Science Prof. Martin Sviatko

ii. Adolf Hitler

Hitler (1889 – 1945)

Adolf Hitler was chancellor of Germany from 1934 to 1945, serving as the

infamous leader of Nazi Party or National Socialist German Workers Party for the

majority of his time in power. Hitler initiated fascist policies that led to the world

war II and the death of at least 11 million people, including the mass murder of an

estimated 6 million Jewish people. With so many deaths by the ruthlessness of his

policies, many wondered what could have made a man became this cruel.
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1. Early Life

Adolf Hitler as an infant

Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, in a small Austrian town called

Braunau on the Inn River along the Bavarian-German border. He is the fourth of

six children of Alois Hilter and Klara Polzl, Alois Hitler’s third wife. Gustav, Ida

and Otto, the three of Hilter’s siblings all died in infancy. Alois Hitler was a retired

state customs official and was a really strict father to Hitler. Alois was known to

beat Hitler constantly despite his mother’s protest. Hitler’s later interest in Fine Art

as a career did not help their already failing relationship at all. Although Hitler had

always been a lone wolf in the family, after the death of his younger brother,

Edmund, in 1900, he became even more detached and introverted. And after his
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father’s death in 1903, Hitler started to become rebellious and began failing at

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school until he finally left school altogether in 1905. Aimlessly, he spent his time

reading, painting and wandering in the woods as well as dreaming of becoming a

famous artist. As the year 1907, his mother passed, forcing him to move to Vienna

in an attempt to enroll in the famous Fine Arts Academy there. In the same year, he

fell into deep depression after many failures to gain admission of the academy and

slowly drifted away from his peers.

Alois Hitler and Klara Polzl

It was during this depressing time that Hitler started taking interest in the

gigantic potential of mass political manipulation. However, what really captivated

him the most was the successes of the anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish, the nationalist

Christian-Socialist party of Vienna Mayor Karl Lueger (1844 – 1910). Lueger party

efficiently and ingeniously used propaganda and mass organization. As time passed,

he began to develop the extreme anti-Semitism and racial mythology that were to
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remain central to his own “ideology” and that of the Nazi party until the day of his

own death, the motivate force of his life.

Hitler (far right, seated) with his comrades

In May, 1913, he returned to Munich. As the World War I broke, he applied

to serve in the Germany army and in August 1914, he was accepted despite being

an Austrian citizen yet. Although he didn’t spend much of time on the front lines,

he was present at a number of significant battles and was later wounded twice at the

Somme. For this bravery, he received the Iron Cross First Class and the Black

Wound Badge from the German.

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2. Early Nazi Years

After the World War I collapsed, Hitler became very embittered. He was left

without a place or goal which as consequence pushed him to join the many veterans

who continued to fight in the streets of Germany. In the spring of 1919, with the help

of an adventurer soldier by the name of Ernst Roehm, Hilter found employment as

a political officer in the army in Munich and later promoted to be the head of his

elite soldiers, the storm troop (SA). In this position, Hitler attended a lot of meetings

of the so-called German Workers’ party, a nationalist, anti-Semitic, and the socialist

group in September 1919. And not very soon after, Hitler quickly climbed up the

stair and distinguished himself as this party’s most notorious and notable speaker

and propagandist. By 1921, he helped to increase its membership dramatically to

some six thousand. As April came, Hitler became the leader of the renamed National

Socialist German Workers’ party (NSDAP), the official name of Nazi party.

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Hitler’s German Workers’ Party membership card

In the following years, the poor economic conditions contributed strongly to

the rapid growth of the Nazi party and by the end of 1923, Hitler could count on a

following of some fifty-six thousand members and many more supporters. Regarded

by himself as a strong force in Bavarian, Hitler tried to overthrow the government

of Berlin by staging Nazi Beer Hall Putsch of November 8-9, 1923, hoping to force

the conservative-nationalist Bavarian government to cooperate with him in a so-

called “March on Berlin”. His attempt was, however; failed. He was tried for treason

against the government and was given the rather mild sentence of a year’s

imprisonment in the old fort of Landsberg.

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Defendants in the Beer Hall Putsch trial.

From left to right: Pernet, Weber, Frick, Kiebel, Ludendorff, Hitler,

Bruckner, Röhm, and Wagner.

During this one year of imprisonment, Hitler’s basic ideas of political strategy

and tactics matured greatly. In the prison, he drawn his major plans and beliefs in

Mein Kampf – a 1925 autobiographical book about Hitler himself. He also stated his

dictation to his loyal confidant Rudolf Hess – the deputy leader of his Hitler in Nazi

party. He planned the reorganization of his party that had been outlawed and had lost
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much of its appeal. After his release, Hitler reconstituted the party around a group

of loyal followers who were to remain the center of the Nazi movement and state.
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3. Rise to Power

Hitler poses for the camera, 1930

With the outbreak of the greatest depression in 1929 – the crash of the United

States stock market, the fortunes of Hitler’s movement rose promptly. Millions were

left without a job and numerous banks went bankrupted. Hitler and NSDAP (Nazi)

prepared to take advantage of the emergency to gain support for their party by

promising to strengthen the economy and provide jobs. In the elections of September

1930, the Nazis got nearly 6.5 million votes, and the party had expanded undeniable

popularity in Germany. In November 1932, President Hindenburg (1847 – 1934)

reluctantly called Hitler to the chancellorship to head a coalition government of

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Nazis, conservative German nationalists, and several prominent independents.

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Paul von Hindenburg and Adolf Hitler

on the Day of Potsdam, 21 March 1933

The first two years in office were almost wholly dedicated to balancing power.

With several important Nazis in key positions and his military ally Werner von

Bomberg in the Defense Ministry, Hitler quickly obtained practical control in the

party. He rapidly abolished his political rivals and brought all levels of government

and major political institutions under his grasp. And by August 1934, with the death

of President Hidenburg, the way was cleared for Hitler to remove the title of

president from Germany since it would help him to officially become Führer (all-

powerful ruler) of Germany and thereby head of state, as well as commander in chief

of the armed forces. In other words, everything was in Hitler’s power. In the great
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Nazi mass rally of 1934 in Nuremberg, Germany, his rules were demonstrated most

impressively as millions marched in unison and saluted Hitler’s stage appeals.

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II. World War II

i. Militant Foreign Policy (1933 – 1939)

"Raising a flag over the Reichstag"

the famous photograph by Yevgeny Khaldei, taken on May 2, 1945.

Once Hitler got control over the government of Germany, he directed Nazi

Germany’s foreign policy toward undoing the Treaty of Versailles and restoring

German’s legacy in the world. Hitler railed against the treaty’s redrawn map of

Europe and argued it denied Germany – Europe’s most populous state – “living

space” for its growing population. Even though the Treaty of Versailles was

unequivocally based on the principle of the self-determination of peoples, the

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pointed out that it had separated Germans from Germans by forming new postwar

states such as Austria and Czechoslovakia, where many Germans lived.

On 25 October 1936, an axis was declared between Italy and Germany.

Step by step, Hitler weakened the postwar international order from the mid-

to late 1930s. Hitler removed Germany from the League of Nations in 1933, rebuilt

German army beyond what was tolerable by the Treaty of Versailles, re-occupied

the German Rhineland in 1936, occupied Austria in 1938, and then invaded

Czechoslovakia in 1939. When Nazi Germany moved toward Poland, France and
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Britain countered further aggression by guaranteeing Polish security. However,

Germany still invaded Poland on September 01, 1939, and France and Britain
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declared war on Germany. Six years of Nazi Party foreign policy had awakened the

World War II.

ii. Fight to Dominate Europe (1939 – 1945)

German soldiers march near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, 14 June 1940

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Partly completed Heinkel He-162 fighter jets

sit on the assembly line in the underground Junkers factory
at Tarthun, Germany, in early April 1945.

After occupying Poland, Hitler focused solely on defeating France and

Britain. As the war expanded, the Nazi Party formed alliances with Japan and Italy

in the Tripartite Pact of 1940, and revered its 1939 Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact

with the Soviet Union until 1941, the time when Germany launched a massive

blitzkrieg invasion of the Soviet Union. In the brutal fight that followed, Nazi troops

tried to realize the long-held goal of crushing the world’s major communist power.

Regarding the United States entered the war in 1941, Germany found itself fighting

in North Africa, Italy, France, the Balkans and in a counterattacking Soviet Union.
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At the beginning of the war, Hitler and his Nazi Party were fighting to dominate

Europe; however, five years later, they were fighting to exist.

Death and destruction during the Battle of Stalingrad, October 1942

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How close Nazi Germany came to dominating Europe.

iii. Systematic Murder of European Jews

When Hitler and the Nazis came to power in 1933, they instituted a series of

measures aimed at persecuting Germany’s Jewish citizens. By late 1938, Jews were

banned from most public places in Germany. During the war, the Nazis’ anti-Jewish
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campaigns increased in scale and ferocity. In the invasion and occupation of Poland,

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German troops shot thousands of Polish Jews, confined many to ghettoes where they

starved to death and began sending others to death camps in various parts of Poland,

where they were either killed immediately or forced into slave labor. In 1941, when

Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Nazi death squads machine-gunned tens of

thousands of Jews in the western regions of Soviet Russia.

Hitler's order for Aktion T4, dated 1 September 1939

In early 1942, at the Wannsee Conference near Berlin, the Nazi Party decided
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on the last phase of what it called the “Final Solution” of the “Jewish problem” and

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spelled out plans for the systematic murder of all European Jews. In 1942 and 1943,

Jews in the western occupied countries including France and Belgium were deported

by the thousands to the death camps mushrooming across Europe. In Poland, huge

death camps such as Auschwitz began operating with ruthless efficiency. The

murder of Jews in German-occupied lands stopped only in last months of the war,

as the German armies were retreating toward Berlin. By the time Hitler committed

suicide in April 1945, some 6 million Jews had died.

iv. Denazification

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Front page of the US Armed

Forces newspaper, Stars and Stripes,

2 May 1945, announcing Hitler's death

The subway rush hour is brought to a standstill in New York City,

May 1, 1945 as the report of Hitler's death was received.

After the war, the Allies occupied Germany, outlawed the Nazi Party and worked to

purge its influence from every aspect of German life. The party’s swastika flag

quickly became a symbol of evil in modern postwar culture. Although Hitler killed
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himself before he could be brought to justice, a number of Nazi officials were

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convicted of war crimes in the Nuremberg trials, which took place in Nuremberg,

Germany, from 1945 to 1949.

Defendants in the dock at the Nuremberg trials

III. Nazi Policies

The Policy of Nazi Germany was a set of policies and laws implemented in

Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945 – when Hitler and his Nazi Party controlled

the country through a dictatorship. Culture, economy, freedom, education and law

was under the great control of Nazi. By mid-July in 1933, Nazi Party was the only

and the largest single political party in Germany.

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i. Nazi Germany and Jews

SA members enforce boycott of Jewish stores, 1 April 1933

The moment Hitler and Nazis got the power in 1933, a series of measures aim

at persecuting Germany’s Jewish citizens was established. By January, 1933, there

were about 522,00 Jews by religious definition lived in Germany; however, over half

of these individuals – approximately 304,00 Jews – emigrated during the first six

years of Nazi Party dictatorship, leaving only approximately 214,00 Jews in

Germany proper (1937 borders) on the event of the World War II.

In 1936, Jews were banned from all professional jobs – preventing them from
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having any influence in education, politics and industry. There was nothing that

could stop the anti-Jewish actions that spread across the German economy.

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Subsequently, by late 1938, Jewish people were banned completely from most

public places in Germany and the Nazis’ anti-semantic campaigns increased in scale

and ferocity during the time of the World War II.

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ii. Economy Policies

Woman with OST-Arbeiter badge at the IG Farben plant in Auschwitz

In June 1933, the Nazi Party passed a law to reduce unemployment which

consequently fell from 6 million in 1933 to just 300,000 by 1939 to virtually nothing.

Hitler’s economic policies was remarkably effective with only four main ideas:

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1. Full Employment: the idea that everyone

should have a job. By 1939, there was

virtually no unemployment in Germany.

2. Beauty of Work: the Nazi Party set up the

SDA (Beauty of Work) to assist the

Germans’ view that work was good, and that

everyone who could work should do it.

Since the Nazis had abolished the trade unions, banned strikes, and given more

power to the industrialists, real salaries fell and working hours were much

longer under the Nazis’ eyes.

3. Re-armament: begun in 1935, the idea of ‘guns before butter’.

4. Autarky: there was an unsuccessful attempt at making Germany self-

sufficient.

iii. Nazi Party Platform

The following list contains some of the provisions that Hitler proposed at the

National Socialist German Workers' Party’s first large party gathering in February

1920.

§ We demand the unification of all Germans in a Greater Germany on the basis

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of the right of national self-determination.

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§ We demand . . . the revocation of the peace treaty of Versailles . . .

§ We demand land and territory (colonies) to feed our people and to settle our

surplus population.

§ . . . Only those of German blood, whatever their creed, may be members of

the nation. Accordingly, no Jew may be a member of the nation.

§ Non-citizens may only live in Germany as guests and must be subject to laws

for aliens.

§ The right to vote. . . shall be enjoyed by the citizens . . . alone. We demand

therefore that all official appointments, of whatever kind, whether in the

Reich, in the states or in the smaller localities, shall be held by none but

citizens.

§ We demand that the State shall make its primary duty to provide a livelihood

for its citizens. If it should prove impossible to feed the entire population,

foreign nationals (non-citizens) must be deported . . .

§ All non-German immigration must be prevented. We demand that all non-

Germans who entered Germany after 2 November 1914 shall be required to

leave immediately . . .

§ . . . To facilitate the creation of a German national press we demand:

ü that all editors of, and contributors to newspapers appearing in the German
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language must be members of the nation;

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ü that no non-German newspapers may appear without express permission

of the State. They must not be printed in the German language;

ü that non-Germans shall be prohibited by law from participating financially

in or influencing German newspapers . . .

§ The Party . . . is convinced that our nation can achieve permanent health only

from within on the basis of the principle: The common interest before self-

interest . . .

IV. Legacy

From 1933 to 1945, Hitler and the Nazis won over the German people with

the promise of stability and security, and work. Hitler’s leadership resulted in the

death of 60 million people including millions of innocent civilians. Racism was at

the core of Nazi ideology. Hitler saw the history of the world as a struggle between

races competing for land and resources. Hitler considered Germans, defined by

blood, the master race, destined to dominate a vast empire. Inferior races would be

enslaved. Hitler believed that everything must be done to promote the purity and

dominance of German people. Mentally and physically disable German were

forcibly sterilized and later murdered, Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian so-called “half-

breeds,” like many other mixed races, were considered racially impure and also
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sterilized.

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Under the cover of anti-partisan operations,

the Germans murdered civilians in 5,295 localities in occupied Soviet Belarus.

Furthermore, Hitler banned marriage between German and other races.

Homosexuals, since they were unlikely to increase the German birthrate, were also

a threat. Many were imprisoned and subject to forced labor. Germany invaded

Poland in 1939, starting WW2. The war was an opportunity for Hitler to implement

his racist vision. To Hitler, other races were dangerous to German. Hierarchically,

German were at the top. Everyone else – including Arabs, Slavs, and North Africans,

was inferior and faced enslavement or death. At the bottom were the Jews,

considered a race by Hitler and to blame for Germany’s problems. By 1941,

Germany had conquered most of Europe and began restructuring the continent along

racial lines. Inferior races – Roma, Poles, and Soviet prisoners of war, faced
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subjugation, forced labor and death. This was the context for the Holocaust, the

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systematic murder of over 6 million Jews. Germany surrendered to overwhelming

allied military force by May 1945. The crimes of Nazi regime were eventually

exposed to worldwide condemnation. Their deadly ideology was discredited. But the

consequences of Hitler’s ideology were enormous.

A view taken from Dresden's town hall of the destroyed Old Town

after the allied bombings between February 13 and 15, 1945.

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 Nazis Germany Political Science Prof. Martin Sviatko

Number of Deaths
Group Number of Deaths
Jews 6 million
around 7 million (including 1.3 Soviet Jewish civilians,
Soviet civilians
who are included in the 6 million figures for Jews)
around 3 million (including about 50,000 Jewish
Soviet prisoners of war
soldiers)
around 1.8 million (including between 50,000 and
Non-Jewish Polish civilians
100,000 members of the Polish elites)
Serb civilians (on the territory of
312,000
Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina)
People with disabilities living in
up to 250,000
institutions
Roma (Gypsies) 196,000–220,000
Jehovah's Witnesses around 1,900
Repeat criminal offenders and so-
at least 70,000
called asocials
German political opponents and
resistance activists in Axis- undetermined
occupied territory
hundreds, possibly thousands (possibly also counted in
Homosexuals part under the 70,000 repeat criminal offenders and so-
called asocials noted above)
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V. Conclusion

Racism was the core ideology of Nazi Germany and Hitler. This ideology

resulted in world war, countless war crime and crime against humanity, the death of

60 million people including millions of innocent civilians. Racism has been present

in almost every civilization and society throughout the history. Despite the humanity

great progress in the last decades – both socially, economically and technologically

– racism still exists up until today, deeply embedded in the old-fashioned, narrow-

minded traditions and values. Perhaps now, it is time to get rid of this ideology.

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Reference

https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/about/nazi-germany-1933-

39/beginning-of-persecution.html#narrative_info

https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/documenting-numbers-of-

victims-of-the-holocaust-and-nazi-persecution

https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/national-socialist-german-

workers-party-platform

https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-holocaust-and-

human-behavior/rise-nazi-party

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequences_of_Nazism

https://www.ushmm.org/learn/consequences-nazi-ideology-film

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/nazi-party

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-rule

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