Nazism and Hitler

* The Rise of the Nazis

- real name that Nazi stands for:

-> National Socialist German Workers Party

-> in German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterparte

- Post-WWI Weimar Republic weak

-> war debt and loss of factories and land caused G. to miss 20's boom

-> taxes hammering everyone

-> German workers communists

=> looking to Soviet example

- Nazi's create a populist / fascist program

-> nationalization of big business

-> higher wages

-> land reform (break up big holdings)

->support for "middle class"

-> law and order

->anti-communism

=> street violence

=> brown shirts

-> anti-Semitism

-> promises to abandon Versailles treaty

* Depression and deadlock

- 1929 bust hits Germany hard

-> massive unemployment (40%)

-> bankrupt gov. can't help as in other countries

- Communists growing more popular

-> serious fear of revolution

- 1932 elections to the Reichstag leaves the Nazis the largest party and no one else in

majority

-> non-fascist parties couldn't agree to compromise

=> communists in particular didn't trust anyone and wouldn't help

-> In presidential voting, Hitler came in second with only 37% of the vote to Hindenburg

-> 1933 Hitler asked by President von Hindenburg to become chancellor

* Solidification of power

- Hitler calls new elections

- Feb. 27, 1933 Reichstag burned down

-> not clear who did it, but probably Nazis looking for terrorism

-> Hitler blamed communists

-> new government gives Hitler dictatorial laws to deal with chaos

=> Nazis the ones responsible for the chaos though

- A series of totalitarian laws passed

-> secret police created, the Gestapo

-> Nazis given control of educational curriculum

=> teaching German youth of Jewish "crimes" and Nazi idea of culture

-> books and arts censored, burned publicly

-> idea of "collective justice" put into law

=> an entire group of people could now be punished for "crimes"

-> bureaucracy purged of Jews and Nazi political opponents

-> opposing political parties attacked

=> leaders and meetings beaten or assassinated

=> Communists sent to "concentration camps" to re-educate and punish them

+> not death camps usually, that's later

-> eventually all parties other than Nazis declared illegal

- breaking the treaty of Versailles

-> Hitler begins to rearm Germany

=> the rest of Europe annoyed, but Germany needed an army

=> no-one else willing to go to war for a few machine guns

- open anti-Semitism, but not death camps still years away