Sundi King

M. Terry

Humanities 11

1.27.23

DBQ #2

The accession of the Nazi Party in prewar Germany was a consequence of the political,

economical, and theoretical problems that the nation had experienced in WWI. In 1920’s

Germany the National Socialist became a political party that had fascist and racist ideals that

were backed by manipulating an already struggling and angry nation into the idea to reform and

reshape society as a whole in the world. These three problems were the catalyst to start the

world’s most deadly war of all time, and it began with the ending of WWI.

WWI ended with the signing of the treaty of Versailles in 1919 when many German

opposing countries came together to form a peace alliance. In this treaty it stated that Germany

must give up land, mainly to Poland and France, as well as pay large reparations for the damages

caused in the war. Many people in Germany were already struggling because of the war, so

giving large amounts of money to their opposing countries made the citizens angry. In 1928 an

election was held which affected German parliament seats, the National Socialist Party, which

included Hitler and many other Nazi/Fascist people, had 800,000 votes. Two years later, after the

stock market crash, the election was taken again and the party had 6,400,000 votes, this

increased their seats represented at parliament from 12 to 107.

The stock market crash was a vital part in the rise of the Nazi power. In 1929 the stock

market crashed and sent the world into a frenzy. The citizens of Germany were left frightened,

angry, and struggling financially because of this collapse. After this time of great tragedy in the
world, people were looking for someone to blame and the National Socialist Party were exactly

the people to listen to. Prominent figures in this party manipulated the citizens of their nation to

believe that what they were doing was just and ethical. In a speech Hitler had stated, “with this

political purification of our public life, the Government of the Reich will undertake a thorough

moral purging of the ... nation.” They used words like nation, unification, and self-determination

to idolize this sense of extreme nationalism and violence to get the German people to agree to

their ideals. Within these ideals, one common goal was the most important among the party and

that was “inward cleansing”.

The name for this belief at the time was called eugenics. Eugenics was an incorrect

scientific theory that thought of humanity as “survival of the fittest”, that humans, like plants and

animals, were to compete against each other to thrive. If humans were to succeed in their fight

for survival, they were to get rid of all the unhealthy and diseased people. In Nazi Germany the

Socialist believed the people who were at fault for this were the Jews. They proclaimed that if

people of the Nordic race were to mix with inferior strains (jews) or die out through race suicide,

then humanity would collapse and be eliminated. They had stated in a 25-point program that

“Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of

German blood, without consideration of creed. Consequently no Jew can be a member of the

race.” it went on to say that anyone who was an immigrant in Germany was to leave

immediately. This was the start of Nazi concentration camps in Germany where they would

commit mass genocide of Jewish people and torture the others and use them for scientific

research, like a cruel “means to an end”.

The National Socialist Party became so famous because of a perfect mix of suffering,

loss, anger, and determination within the citizens of Germany. They used tactics like
manipulation and current events (like the great depression) to persuade people to join their cause,

and once they had the citizens' admiration they used them to help their cause of inward

cleansing. Today students learn about this great tragedy in schools to remember the past and

swear to never repeat it.