NAZISM AND THE

RISE OF HITLER
ADOLF HITLER
• Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was the
founder and leader of the Nazi
Party and the most influential
voice in the organization,
implementation and execution of
the Holocaust, the systematic
extermination and ethnic
cleansing of six million European
Jews and millions of other non-
aryans.
• Hitler was the Head of State,
Supreme Commander of the
Armed Forces and guiding spirit,
or fuhrer, of Germany's Third
Reich from 1933 to 1945
 EARLY YEARS
• Born in Braunau am Inn, Austria, on
April 20, 1889.
• Hitler was the son of a fifty-two-year-
old Austrian customs official, Alois
Schickelgruber Hitler, and his third
wife, a young peasant girl, Klara
Poelzl, both from the backwoods of
lower Austria. The young Hitler was a
resentful, discontented child. Moody,
lazy, of unstable temperament, he was
deeply hostile towards his strict,
authoritarian father and strongly
attached to his indulgent, hard-
working mother, whose death from
cancer in December 1908 was a
shattering blow to the adolescent
Hitler.
• After spending four years in the Realschule in Linz, he left school at
the age of sixteen with dreams of becoming a painter. In October
1907, the provincial, middle-class boy left home for Vienna, where
he was to remain until 1913 leading a bohemian, vagabond
existence. Embittered at his rejection by the Viennese Academy of
Fine Arts, he was to spend "five years of misery and woe" in
Vienna as he later recalled, adopting a view of life which changed
very little in the ensuing years, shaped as it was by a pathological
hatred of Jews and Marxists, liberalism and the cosmopolitan
Habsburg monarchy.
• Existing from hand to mouth on occasional odd jobs and the
hawking of sketches in low taverns, the young Hitler compensated
for the frustrations of a lonely bachelor's life in miserable male
hostels by political harangues in cheap cafes to anyone who would
listen and indulging in grandiose dreams of a Greater Germany
 WHAT IS NAZISM?
• Nazism, commonly known as National Socialism (German:
Nationalsozialismus), refers primarily to the ideology and
practices of the Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler; and the
policies adopted by the government of Nazi Germany\
• The Nazis were one of several historical groups that used
the term National Socialism to describe themselves, and in
the 1920s they became the largest such group. Nazism is
generally considered by scholars to be a form of fascism,
and while it incorporated elements from both political
wings, it formed most of its temporary alliances on the
political right
• . Among the key elements of Nazism were anti-
parliamentarism, ethnic nationalism, racism,
collectivism, eugenics, antisemitism, opposition to
economic liberalism and political liberalism, anti-
communism, and totalitarianism.
• Nazism was not a monolithic movement, but rather
a (mainly German) combination of various
ideologies and groups, sparked by anger at the
Treaty of Versailles and what was considered to
have been a Jewish/Communist conspiracy
GERMAN OCCUPIED EUROPE
 RISE TO POWER (1928-1933)
• In 1928 Hitler’s Nazi Party were a small, insignificant
party. They enjoyed little success in elections and were
viewed as little more than thugs by the political elite. By
1933 however Hitler was the chancellor of Germany. The
Nazi’s had risen from obscurity to power, total power.
 FACTORS INFLUENCING THE RISE
• Stresemann’s death
• The Wall Street Crash
• Economic instability
• Failure of the Weimar Government to cope with
problems
• Weakness of the constitution
• Force used against opponents
• Wide ranging populist policies
• Visible strength at a time of weakness
 RISE TO POWER
• Wall Street Crash
• End of US Aid
• Economic Collapse
• Rising Unemployment
• High inflation
• Pressure on government
• Disillusionment with government
• Interest in extreme ideas
• Opportunity for Nazi’s
• Apparent weakness of Weimar
• Show of strength by Hitler
• Rise in votes for Nazi’s
Factors
• Inability of Weimar to
cope with economic crisis
• Hitler’s manipulation of
situation
• Public desire for order
and strength
• Politicians naivety in
dealing with Hitler
• Fear of communism
Lead to
• Rise of National
Socialism
• Instability of Weimar
government
 But the Nazi’s never had a majority!
• The Nazi Party never had an absolute majority
in the Weimar government
• They did become the largest single party
though
• Proportional representation allows non
majority parliaments in the form of coalitions
 How were the Nazi’s able to
achieve this so quickly?
1. The economic 6. Chancellor’s in the period
situation was very bad 1928-33 weren’t widely
supported within the
2. Hitler was a great Reichstag
public speaker 7. Goebbel’s propaganda
3. The SA and SS was effective
disrupted he work of 8. People were fed up of
political opponents ineffective coalition
4. The Nazi’s were governments and the
current situation
funded by
industrialists such as 9. The Nazi’s targeted
certain groups of the
Alfred Hugenberg electorate
5. The other political 10. People didn’t want a
parties wouldn’t work return to the
together hyperinflation of 1923-24
How did Hitler consolidate power?
• The Reichstag Fire • Hitler used his position, and the
• Creates a climate that
Hitler can manipulate
for his on ends
• The Enabling Act
• Hitler uses Article 48 to
create a State of
Emergency. The act
effectively ends
democracy in Germany.
• The Night of the Long
Knives
• Opposition from within
the party is removed:
violently. The SA is
‘purged’.
frailties and subsequent death of
Hindendburg, to engineer a Nazi
take over of government. He
makes use of Article 48 to
legitimise the end of democracy
before radically altering the
structure of government. Soon
opposition is banned and
Germany has a one party state.
Pressure groups, such as Trade
unions, are also banned. This
Nazi ‘Revolution’ is secured as a
result of the removal of all
possible threats to nazi rule: the
SA, the army and political parties
are all ‘dealt with’ by the end of
1934.
 Lebensraum
• Lebensraum (German for "habitat" or literally "living space")
was one of the major political ideas of Adolf Hitler, and an
important component of Nazi ideology. It served as the
motivation for the expansionist policies of Nazi Germany,
aiming to provide extra space for the growth of the German
population, for a Greater Germany. In Hitler's book Mein
Kampf, he detailed his belief that the German people needed
Lebensraum ("living space", i.e. land and raw materials), and
that it should be found in the East. It was the stated policy of
the Nazis to kill, deport, or enslave the Polish, Russian and
other Slavic populations, whom they considered inferior, and
to repopulate the land with Germanic peoples. The entire
urban population was to be exterminated by starvation, thus
creating an agricultural surplus to feed Germany and allowing
their replacement by a German upper class.
 The Nazis And The Jews
• The nazis hated the jews The Nazi Symbol
because of the following
main reasons.They were-
• Christ Killlers
• Defeat of Germany in
hated
World War II
• Inferior race
• Great depression of 1929
The Jewish
Symbol
 1.Christ Killers
• Right from the so-called crucifixion
of Jesus .Jews were blamed by the
Gospel for this incident. According
to analysts, right after this incident
throughout, Europe prosecution of
Jews started, Extreme instances of
Jewish persecution include the
First Crusade of 1096, the
expulsion from England in 1290,
the Spanish Inquisition, the
expulsion from Spain in 1492, the
expulsion from Portugal in 1497
and Holocaust was the climax of
this centuries old hatred, which
was created by Christian church.
 2.Defeat of Germany in World War II
• After the signing of Treaty of
Versailles at the end of WW1, state
of war between Germany and its
allied forces was formally ended, as
far as Germans are concerned,
they totally rejected this treaty as
it was considered bad for the
Germany.
• After the World War 1, majority of
Germans were of the view that,
they came close to winning the war
with the Spring Offensive earlier in
1918, but they failed because of
strikes in the arms industry at a
critical moment of the offensive,
leaving soldiers with an inadequate
supply of materiel and this strike
was blamed on the Jews.
 3.Inferior race
• According to historians, it is
widely believed that Hitler
deemed Germans as to be a
superior race as compared to
other races i.e.
Aryans,Jews,Gypsies etc and
he thought that this was one
of important reasons of
Holocaust and prosecution of
other races.
 4.Great depression of 1929
• Great Depression of 1929, started
just after the stock market crash on
October 29, 1929 on black Tuesday,
Germany was worst hit by this
economic downturn, almost every
city was affected and 6 million
people got unemployed.
• During and after the slump, Jews
were doing great financially, that
made the role of Jews suspicious in
the eyes of Germans and negative
propaganda by Hitler provided the
impetus to this notion and they
started thinking that, Jews are
responsible for this Downturn and
they are getting full benefit from
the recession.
 Concentration Camps
• Nazi Germany maintained concentration camps . (in German Konzentrationslager, or
KZ) throughout the territories it controlled. The first Nazi concentration camps set up
in Germany were greatly expanded after the Reichstag fire of 1933, and were
intended to hold political prisoners and opponents of the regime. The term was
borrowed from the British concentration camps of the Second Anglo-Boer War.
• The number of camps quadrupled between 1939 and 1942 to 300+, as slave-
laborers from across Europe, Jews, political prisoners, criminals,gypsies, the
mentally ill and others were incarcerated, generally without judicial process.
Holocaust scholars draw a distinction between concentration camps and
extermination camps, which were established by the Nazis for the industrial-
scale mass murder of the predominantly Jewish ghetto and concentration
camp populations
 World War II
• World War II, or the Second World War,
was a global conflict that was
underway by 1939 and ended in 1945.
It involved most of the world's nations
—including all of the great powers—
eventually forming two opposing
military alliances: the Allies and the
Axis. It was the most widespread war
in history, with more than 100 million
military personnel mobilised. In a state
of "total war", the major participants
placed their entire economic,
industrial, and scientific capabilities at
the service of the war effort, erasing
the distinction between civilian and
military resources. Marked by
significant events involving the mass
death of civilians, including the
Holocaust and the only use of nuclear
weapons in warfare, it is the deadliest
conflict in human history, resulting in
50 million to over 70 million fatalities.
 Reasons
• The rearmament of Germany was a
cause for war because it broke the
Treaty of Versailles (28th June, 1919)
• The remilitarization of the Rhineland
(7th march, 1936) was a cause of war
because it broke the Treaty of Versailles .
• Chamberlain’s appeasement policy (after
may 1937 – March 1939) was a cause of
war because it broke the Treaty of
VersaillesThe Anschluss of Germany with
Austria (13th march, 1938) was a cause
of war because it broke the Treaty of
Versailles and Treaty of St. Germain
(10th September, 1919)
• The Nazi annexation of the Sudetenland
after the Munich conference (29th •The Nazi occupation of
September 1938) was a cause of war, Czechoslovakia in March 1939, cause
because it broke the Treaty of St. war because it defied the Munich
Germain.
agreement and ended Britain’s
appeasement policy.
•The Nazi invasion of Poland (1st
September 1939) caused war because
Britain had guaranteed Poland’s
borders
The Axis Powers
 Death of Hitler
• Adolf Hitler committed suicide by gunshot on
Monday, 30 April 1945 in his Führerbunker in Berlin.
His wife Eva, committed suicide with him by ingesting
cyanide.That afternoon, in accordance with Hitler's
prior instructions, their remains were carried up the
stairs through the bunker's emergency exit, doused
in petrol and set alight in the Reich Chancellery
garden outside the bunker. The Soviet archives
record that their burnt remains were recovered and
interred in successive locations until 1970 when they
were again exhumed, cremated and the ashes
scattered.
Front page of the U.S. Armed Forces
newspaper, Stars and Stripes, 2 May
1945.