IDs / Definitions
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Mein Kampf
Nuremberg Laws 1935
Policy of Appeasement
Anschluss
lebensraum
Kristallnacht
Concentration Camp system
Munich Pact
10-Year Non-Aggression Pact (Soviet Union and Germany)
Allied Powers / Axis Powers
Blitzkrieg
Stalingrad / El Alamein / D-Day
V-E Day / V-J Day
Questions and Imperatives
• How did Adolf Hitler deal with the Churches of
Germany? The Jews? The Versailles Treaty?
• Discuss the step-by-step progress of Hitler
taking over the nations of Europe.
• How did the Allied nations plan to deal with
WWII?
• Can the force of ideas sustain a civilization
under attack? (Class discussion)
January 30, 1933
President Paul von Hindenburg names Nazi party
Leader, Adolf Hitler the new Chancellor of Germany.
Hitler named Chancellor
• January 1933
• Why
• What followed
– Burning of Reichstag
– Enabling Act
– Dachau
Dachau
• First concentration camp established for
enemies of the Reich – outside Munich, open
March 22, 1933
Hitler deals with the Churches
• Reich Concordat
• German Christians
• Confessing Church
Hitler deals with the Jews
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Hitler’s “war against the Jews”
April 1, 1933 boycott
Jews lose jobs
Jews limited in higher education
Jewish immigrants lose citizenship
Some Jews leave Germany
“War” against the Jews
• April 1, Boycott of all Jewish stores
War Against the Jews
• 1935 Nuremburg Laws
• 1938 Kristallnacht
• “War” moves beyond Germany
– Disenfranchise
– Dehumanize
– Expropriation
– Concentration
– Annihilation
Nuremberg Laws
• The Law for the Protection of German Blood and
German Honor
– prohibited marriages and extramarital intercourse
between "Jews” and "Germans"
– Prohibited the employment of "German" females under
forty-five in Jewish households
• The Reich Citizenship Law
– those of German blood (Aryan) are German citizens
– Not Aryan = state subjects
– Not Aryan, cannot fly flag of the Reich
Mussolini in Italy
• Mussolini sends troops to discourage Hitler
from annexing Austria in 1934
• Mussolini was “active” in Europe, tried to tell
other European nations that he could not
always be the one to
control problems
(e.g. Hitler’s attempts
to expand)
“Third Reich”
• 1934 is rather quiet for the Jews, think that
Hitler cannot last, but
• Hindenburg dies in August and Hitler becomes
the Führer, the leader, he names his new
reign the “Third Reich”
1935
• (1933-1935), about 1/10 of the Jews leave Germany,
and of those about 1/3 return because they find
anti-Semitism strong in other countries
– Loss of jobs
– Persecution / murders
– Nuremberg Laws
• March 1935, Hitler reimposes peacetime conscription
throughout Germany, building up troops (against
the Versailles Treaty), secret rearmament had been
going on since 1933
• May, Jews excluded from the armed forces
• July, pogrom in Berlin, Jews beaten and shops
destroyed
Strange Bedfellows?
• January 7, 1935, Mussolini and Laval sign French-Italian agreement in
Rome, French agreeing to give Italy a free hand in Ethiopia
• Mussolini had colonial ambitions, Italy had been defeated by the
Ethiopians in 1890s and Mussolini wanted to conquer them
• Ethiopian Emperor said if you don’t watch it, Europe will be next
• G.B. not happy with the Fr-It agreement and when Italy moved on
Ethiopia, G.B. imposed economic sanctions and condemned Italy
• by the end of the year, foreign ministers of G.B. and Fr suggested a
compromise such that Italy would receive 2/3 of Ethiopia
• not well received and Mussolini decided Italy could stand alone against
the world, war took place in Ethiopia
• Hitler supported Mussolini with supplies, at the same time making his
own moves
• Mussolini appreciated Hitler’s help
• Rome-Berlin Axis (Axis powers) - 1936
1936
• March, Hitler remilitarizes the Rhineland
(against the Versailles Treaty)
• OLYMPICS IN GERMANY
• November, Germany/Italy form a military
alliance and Germany/Japan sign a pact
• she has to be good, look good to the outside
world; Jews can take a breath
1937
• Buchenwald concentration camp opened,
again for those opposed to the Reich
1938
• MARCH - the ANSCHLUSS
• Hitler wanted the union (Anschluss) of Austria with Germany (failed in
1934)
• Hitler pressure Chancellor Schuschnigg of Austria for union, but…
• Hitler moves his troops to the border which causes Schuschnigg to
resign (Austrian Nazi to take his place as Chancellor - SeyssInquart)
• German troops march into Austria greeted by cheering crowds (not the
Jews)
• Great Britain at this point followed a policy of appeasement (P.M.
Chamberlain knew that the Austrian union was coming and
accepted it)
• Mussolini, who had kept Hitler from Austria in 1934 now congratulated
him (Mussolini realized the strength of the Third Reich and could
not have opposed it anyway)
Jews of Austria
• What German Jews experienced in 5 years,
Austrian Jews experienced in days
• In August, Adolf Eichmann established “Zentralstelle
fuer juedische Auswanderung”
• Jews begin to emigrate
1938
• SUDETENLAND:
• Hitler wanted German speaking Sudetenland (3 million
people) of Czechoslovakia
• after the Anschluss, Sudetenland question again arose
• France had a treaty with Czechoslovakia to help protect
her, but G.B. would not support France
• threats and discussion went back and forth,
Czechoslovakia did not want to give up this region
• September - discussions
Against the Versailles Treaty
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1933-34: secretly rearming
1935: remilitarizes the Rhineland
1935: outwardly rearming
1938-39 takes back land
POLICY OF APPEASEMENT
Munich Pact
• P.M. Chamberlain did not want to provoke Hitler in to
war and was ready to appease again in the situation of
the Sudetenland
• Munich Conference held in September attended by
Chamberlain, Hitler, Mussolini, and Daladier...German
would annex the Sudetenland and agreed to guarantee
Czech borders
• Czechoslovakia had to comply
• Chamberlain went back to G.B. proclaiming “peace in our
time”...thought he could trust Hitler, that Hitler was
done...NO NO NO...but G.B. did begin to rearm (not quite
that trusting)
1938
• NOVEMBER 9,10 – KRISTALLNACHT
Hitler takes the rest of Czechoslovakia –
Early 1939
1939
• CZECHOSLOVAKIA:
• March, Czech president called to Germany and threatened by Hitler
and Goering
• President Emil Hacha surrenders Czechoslovakia
• G.B. does not now think so highly of Neville Chamberlain
• Europe began to realize that Poland would be Hitler’s next target
• Chamberlain assured the Poles that G.B.
and France would protect her
• Hitler planned to attack Poland in
September
• May, Hitler and Mussolini concluded a
military alliance, “Pact of Steel”
named by Mussolini: each would come
to the other’s aid in the event of war
Summer 1939
• RUSSIA:
• Hitler did not want a two-front war
• in August, Germany and the Soviet Union signed
a ten-year non-aggression pact also known as the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (Treaty)
• Russian foreign minister Molotov and German
foreign minister Ribbentrop
• It contained a secret protocol that divided Poland
between the two nations
• IRONY??
German and Soviet Union sign 10-year
non-aggression pact in August 1939
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/w
w2/molotovpact.html
World War II Begins
• September 1, Germany invades Poland
• Blitzkrieg??
• Britain and France declared war on Germany,
September 3
• Soviet forces attacked from the east on September 17
• Poland taken in less than one month (surrender on
September 27), ceased to be an independent nation
• Poland carved up between Soviet Union and Germany
(annexed), with a section set off as the Government
General occupied by a Nazi government
Treatment of Jews
• before Poland even surrendered in the war, Jews
were humiliated across Poland
• on the Jewish “Day of Atonement,” Jews were
forced to dance, labor…some had their beards
shaved off, were beaten, property destroyed
• story of Piotrkow, Poland: Jews forced to relieve
themselves in the synagogue and clean up the
mess with their prayer shawls and Holy Books
• height of harsh treatment on Jewish Holy days,
but humiliation and ill-treatment throughout
Partitioning of Poland
• In October (1939), Germany annexed Poland’s western and
northern region to the Third Reich
• The Soviets took the eastern portions
• The middle section, the heartland of Poland, which included the
cities of Krakow, Lublin, and the capital, Warsaw, became a German
colony known as the Generalgouvernement
• Poland’s population in 1939 was about 33 million with 10 per cent
Jews (3.3 million)
• 2 million of these Jews were now in Nazi occupied territories
• Nazis soon begin deportations of Jews from Western and Northern
regions of Poland to the Generalgouvernement
1940-1941
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Germany into West Europe
England??
America??
Troops in North Africa
Attack on Soviet Union
Pearl Harbor
1942-1943-1944
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Wannsee Conference
Germany thrown on the defensive
Stalingrad
El Alamein
Plans for D-Day
D-Day
1945
• War is ending
• Death marches back
toward Germany
• 3 deaths in April 1945
– FDR died at his home in Georgia April 12
– Mussolini and mistress killed while trying to flee April 28
– Hitler committed suicide in Berlin bunker April 30
• V-E Day, May 7, 1945
– Allied nations occupy Germany
• Allies plan to converge on Berlin together, but?????
• Potsdam Conference
WWII ends!
• April 1945
– FDR died at his home in Georgia April 12
– Mussolini and mistress killed while trying to flee April 28
– Hitler committed suicide in Berlin bunker April 30
• V-E Day, May 7, 1945
– Allied nations occupy Germany
• V-J Day, August 15, 1945
– Enola Gay, Hiroshima (“little boy”)and Nagasaki (“fat
man”)
– Death toll reached 140,000
DISCUSSION QUESTION: What
should we learn from the regime
of “Hitler?”