Paper 2: GERMANY (AUTHORITARIAN STATES)

Timeline

Emergence of authoritarian state

 up to Enabling Act

Conditions for the emergence of power

Economic factors
- High reparation payments, unemployment, economic crisis, inflation
- Germany could not pay of the debts – occupation of Ruhr valley (January 1923)
- passive resistance + non-cooperation
- printing of money for salaries led to hyperinflation
- Effects of hyperinflation
- 1923 – Gustav Stressman appointed Chancellor - Golden era
o new currency – Reichmark
o Dawes plan, 1924: huge loans from USA, restructuration of the reparations
o Young plan, 1929: cut Germany's total reparations from £6.6billion to £2 billion,
59 years to pay reparations
 - October 1929 – Wall street crash + Stressman dies, plunged into depression,
unemployment from 1,3 to 3 (1930) to 6 million (1933), March 1930 government
collapsed

Social division
- Strong division within classes
o Junkers, industrialists, workers
o unprecedented economic growth before WWI (2/3 of Europe ‘s steel)
o no social reforms for growing working class - Anti-socialist law (1870s)
o SPD one of the most important socialist party in Europe
- Division within the SPD – 1918 KPD - Spartacist uprising
- Kaap Putsch (January1920) - after Treaty of Versailles - disbandment of Freikorps, army
refused to intervene!, putsch failed

Impact of War
- 11th November 1918 - armistice
- 9th November – Weimar republic – Eber
- January 1919 – the Spartacist uprising vs Freikorps
- 28th June 1919 – Treaty of Versailles
o “stab in the back myth”
o November criminals
o rise of the rightists

Weakness of political system

- Proportional representation: wide range of different parties, electoral system, weak

coalitions (10 coalitions between 1919 – 1923)
- President – „new emperor “: 7 years mandate, appoint + dismiss the Chancellor (8
chancellors between 1919 and 1926), Commander-in-chief, power to suspend the
constitution and rule by decree (Article 48)
 - Weimar Constitution
- Army had a lot of power - could decide about potential support in uprisings
- Threat from above and below, threat from the left (Spartacist) and right (Kapp)
- Beer Hall putsch (1923) – unsuccessful
- 1926 – Germany joins League of Nations
- Locarno Treaties (1925)
- Effects of economic crisis - Growth of support for Nazi party and communist

Methods used to establish authoritarian state (1919 – 1922)

*You must address/focus on the methods used by the leader, not the conditions. You could also refer to
events that may have either weakened opposition or strengthened Hitler’s position.

Coercion and use of force:

- Kapp Putsch, Spartacist, Beer Hall Putsch

Paramilitary organizations (Freikorps)
- SA (Sturmabteilung), 1920, under Rohm: intimidation of political parties, members,
Reichstag members (Enabling Act)
- SS (Schutzstaffel) 1925, under Himmler: obedience to Hitler, 1929 2.000 men, 1933
200.000 men, driving force behind Holocaust.
- The Reichstag fire, February 1933 – Hitler blamed communists, Hindenburg invoked
Article 48, 28. 2. - „Decree for the protection of the Nation and the state“
- March elections - 5. 3. 1933
o violence and coercion from the SA and SS; 69 deaths
o intimidation of opponents, manipulation through media, radio
o more than 4000 Communists arrested
o banning of public meetings by parties
- the Enabling Act, 24th March 1933 - allowed Hitler to bypass the parliament – legal
dictatorship

- First concentration camp, March 1933, Dachau - political opponents

Methods to establish authoritarian state: propaganda

 - Displaying the strenght of the Nazy party
- Vilifying the „enemies »of Germany (Marxist, Jews, November criminals)
- Legitimation of actions of the Nazi party, mass Nuremberg rallies
- Bigger role in consolidation and maintenance of power

Role of Adolf Hitler

- Joined German workers party in September 1919 (55th member), great oratory skills
- renaming the party – National Socialist German Workers party (1920)
- leader of NSDAP – July 1921
- Beer Hall putsch – November 1923, nine months in prison, reforming the party around
the „Fuhrerprinzip“
- Beer Hall putsch – nov 1923
- Party Congress, 1926 – undisputed leader

Ideology

- 25 points: published on the same day that NSDAP was renamed (1920), combination of
nationalistic ideas, anti-Semitic and anti-immigration policies
- National socialism – Nazism
- Mein Kampf: two-volume autobiographical and political manifesto - personal
background, ideology, and plans for the future
Consolidation and maintenance of power

Use of legal methods

- Gleichschaltung (1933-34)- to secure political supremacy by eliminating other threats to
Hitler‘s rule, alignment with Nazi goals for all German life, monitored by police and
Gestapo
- Centralization of power - 1933: a law dissolved the regional parliaments and replaced
them with Nazi dominated assemblies, Reich Governors were created to oversee the
government of each state, regional parliaments were abolished
- The ‘Law Against the Formation of New Parties’ - 14 July 1933, formally established a
one-party state
- introduction of the German Labor Front (DAF)
- Many local officials were replaced by Nazi officials, public oath of layers
- The Reichskonkordat, 1933 - treaty negotiated between the Vatican and the emergent
Nazi Germany: Nazis guaranteed the Catholic Church religious freedom and full control
over its own education and its property and legal rights, the papacy in return said that
they would not interfere in politics and would give diplomatic recognition to the Nazi
government
- Germany withdraws from League of Nations

Use of force
- Against trade unions and other political opponents
- Night of Long knives, 1934, Rohm killed
- The army aligned themselves behind Hitler and agreed to take a personal oath of loyalty
- the role of SS expended, by 1936 control of entire police system
- GESTAPO (GEheime STAttPOlizei) - no accountability and no judicial oversight, creating
fear and suspicion, arrests and „protective custody “, 20.000 members
- SD (Sicherheitsdienst) - security of Hitler and other top Nazis
- Concentration camps

Charismatic leadership
- taking the oath
- carefully cultivated image of Hitler by Joseph Goebbels
- public speakings

Dissemination of propaganda
- Nuremberg Rallies
- the role of Goebbels
- importance of radio and cinema
- Leni Riefenstahl (Triumph of the Will, Olympia)
- Olympic games 1936

Nature, extent, and treatment of opposition

- No political opposition??? (fear, effective propaganda)
- Do not discuss about Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals (treatment of minorities)
- religious opposition (protestants - September 1933 - 100 Pastors created Confessional
Church - orthodox Protestantism + rejection of any attempt of reconciling with Nazi
ideas, leader Pastor Niemoller; Dietrich Bonhoeffer - training the leaders of the
 Confessional Church, underground resistance; arrested in 1943, executed in
concentration camp in April 1945; Clemens von Galen – protest against the Euthanasia
program (1940), the role of pope Pius XII.
- political opposition (SPD, KPD), - July 1933 - Law Against the Formation of New Parties
- youth opposition: the Edelweiss Pirates, the Swing youth, the White rose
- Concentration camps
- The People’s Court, 1934; accusation of treason

The impact of successes and/or failures on foreign policy on the maintenance of power
- the World Disarmament Conference – 1933
- The Non-aggression Pact with Poland – 1934
- The attempted Anschluss – 1934
- The Saar Plebiscite – 1935
- Rearmament – 1935
- Anglo-German naval agreement –June 1935
- The remilitarisation of the Rhineland (March 1936)
- Spanish civil war (1936 – 1939)
- Alliance with Italy and Japan
o Hitler supported Mussolini’s right to invade Abyssinia (1935) – distraction from
Rhineland
o the Rome-Berlin Axis (Oct 1936) – formal alliance between Italy and Germany
o the Anti-Comintern Pact (November 1936) – Germany + Japan; Italy joined in nov
1937
o the Pact of Steel (May 1939) – political and military union between Italy and
Germany
o the Tripartite Pact (September 1940) – defense alliance; Ger + It + Jap; + Hun,
Rom, Slovakia, Yugoslavia
- The Hossbach Memorandum (nov 1937)
- The Anschluss (1938)
- The Sudetenland Crisis (1938)
- Munich Agreement 29. 9. 1938
- Policy of Appeasement
- The invasion of Czechoslovakia – 15. March 1939
- The Nazi-Soviet Pact (Ribbentrop-Molotov)– 23. 8. 1939
- Invasion of Poland, 1. 9. 1939

Aims and results of policies

Aims and impact of domestic economic, political, social and cultural policies
- Economic:
o Four Year plan (1936-40) self-sufficiency (autarky), reduced unemployment,
public works, economic recovery – build up war industry
o Hjalmar Schacht era: May 1933 - President of the National Bank (Reichsbank),
August 1934 – November 1937 - Minister of Economics, economic
transformation of Germany in the period up to 1936, public works (Autobahn –
Volkswagen project, Schools, civil buildings …), the Reich Labour Service (RAD)
o the war economy - Albert Speer - Reich Minister of Armaments and War
Production in February 1942- systematic control over raw materials, labour and
 arms production, armament production rose 50 % , 3744 planes built (1940),
5000 (the first four months of 1945)
- Political: The Fuhrerprinzip - dedication and obedience to the leader, the will of the
Führer was above the law and all legal institutions, »working towards the Fuhrer),
abolition of the post of the president (August 1934)
- Social: Volksgemeinschaft: Blut und Boden/blood and Soil- impact on different classes
(workers, rural, elites), education/indoctrination of youth- youth organisations
(Hitlerjugend, The League of German Maidens – for girls, »Strenght Through Joy«,
November 1933, to improve workers leisure time, The Beauty of Labour' (Schönheit der
Arbeit) - 1934
- Cultural

The impact of policies on women and minorities

- Treatment of women: the role of women in Weimar republic, undoing the progress,
integration into Volksgemeinschaft, women’s tole: 3 K - Kinder, Kirche, Küche
(transformation through: persuading, restricting, rewarding), propagandic role of women,
increase in births (from 1,2 mill. to 1,4 mill.), women during the war
- Treatment of minorities: for the Nazis, not all humans were equally worthy (Germans -
Aryan Herrenvolk (master race), Slavs and Jews – Untermenschen (subhumans),
Asocials - not a rigorously defined group, Roma and Sinti (‘Gypsies’), the mentally ill,
homosexuals, alcoholics and drug addicts, beggars, pacifists, conscription resistors and
prostitutes)
o Law for Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Progeny , 1933 - empowers doctors
to determine if someone has a hereditary sickness and to order their sterilization
o Law against Dangerous Habitual Criminals - empowers the state to detain
‘habitual criminals’ in concentration camps - is also used against Roma and Sinti
('gypsies‘)
o Amendment to the ‘Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Progeny’ ,
1935 - enables compulsory abortions to be carried out on 'hereditarily ill women’
o Paragraph 175 of the criminal code is amended to include any form of 'criminal
indecency' between men - led to increased arrests of homosexual men.
o 1938 - first major arrests of the 'asocials‘, hundreds are sent to Buchenwald
concentration camp
o 1939 - first severely disabled child killed by the State, at least 5200 infants were
eventually killed through this programme
- The persecution of the Jews
 o 1st Phase: 1933–37: Hitler orders boycott of Jewish shops and businesses,
excluded Jews from government jobs, excluded Jews from owning farmland or
engaging in agriculture, 1934 - ban of Jews from public spaces such as parks,
playing fields, and swimming pools, September 1935: The 'Nuremberg Laws'
passed - The Reich Law on Citizenship (only those of ‘German blood’ can be
German citizens, German Jews deprived of citizenship and the right to vote and
hold government office) and Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour
( ban on marriage or sexual relations between Jews and German citizens, any
previously existing marriages are invalid, Jews are forbidden from employing
German female citizens under 45 years old)
o 2nd phase (1938 – 39): Kristallnacht (9th-10th November 1938)
o Final solution: Wannsee conference

Authoritarian control and the extent to which it was achieved