CHAPTER: 3 – NAZISM AND THE RISE OF HITLER
Level - 1
I. VERY SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS
1.Who was Hitler’s propaganda Minister?
Ans. Goebbels
2.What was Nazism?
Ans. Nazism was the ideology and practices associated with the Nazi party.
3. Define the term ‘Holocaust’.
Ans. Holocaust are defined as Nazi killing operations.
4.Name the peace treaty signed after World War I.
Ans. Treaty of Versailles of 1919
5. What was Reichstag?
Ans. Reichstag was the name of the German Parliament.
6.What did ‘Article 48’ of Weimar Republic state?
Ans. The article allowed the President, under certain situations, take emergency measures
without prior consent of Reichstag.
7.What was the immediate cause of World War II?
Ans. German invasion of Poland
8.Who was Darwin?
Ans. English Natural Scientist whose Scientific Theory of Evolution by natural selection became
the foundation of modern Evolutionary Studies.
9.Who was Herbert Spencer?
Ans. He was an English philosopher, biologist and political theorist of the Victorian era.
10.What were the ‘gas chambers’ referred to as by Nazis?
Ans. Nazi Germany made extensive use of various types of gas chamber for mass killing
II. DEFINE/WRITE THE MEANING OF THE FOLLOWING TERMS:
a. Allies:
Ans. The Allied powers were initially led by the UK and France. In 1941 - they were joined by
the USSR and USA. They fought against the Axis powers, namely Germany, Italy and Japan.
b. International Military Tribunal:
Ans. It was setup to prosecute Nazi war criminals for Crimes against Peace, for War Crimes and
Crimes against Humanity.
c. November Criminals-Ans. Those who supported the Weimar republic, mainly Socialists,
Catholics and Democrats became easy targets of a mock in the conservative nationalists’
circles. They were mockingly called 'November Criminals'.
d. Propaganda
Ans. Specific type of message directly aimed at influencing the opinion of people through the
use of posters, films, speeches etc.
e. Concentration Camp
Ans. A camp in Germany where people (Jews etc.) were isolated and detained without due
process by law, The people were filled in chamber and then gassed.
f. Pauperized
Ans. Reduced to absolute poverty.
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g. Usurers
Ans. Moneylenders charging excessive interest, often used as a term of abuse.
h. Hitler Youth
Ans. At 14, all boys had to join the Nazi youth organization Hitler youth-where they learnt to
warship war, glorify aggression and violence, condemn democracy and hate Jews, communists
etc.
i. Holocaust
Ans. Nazi billing operations were called Holocaust.
j. Nordic German Aryans
Ans. One branch of those classified as Aryans. They lived in north European countries and
had German or related origin.
k. Wall Street
Ans. Wall street is the name of the world's biggest stock exchange located in the USA.
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ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:
1. What was the impact of the defeat of Imperial Germany on its polity?
Ans. (i) The defeat of imperial Germany and the abdication of the emperor gave an
opportunity to Parliamentary parties to recast German policy.
(ii) A national Assembly met at Weimar and established a democratic constitution with a
federal structure.
(iii) Deputies were now elected to the German Parliament, on the basis of equal rights and
universal votes casted by all adults including women.
(iv) Germany was defeated by USA in November.
2.What do you mean by hyperinflation in Germany? What were its causes?
Ans. (i) A situation when prices rise phenomenally high. e.g. In April the USD was equal to
24000 marks, in July 353,000 mark, in August 4,621,000 marks and at 98,860,000 marks in
December, the figure has run into trillions.
Causes(i) Germany had fought the war largely on loans and had to pay reparations in gold.
(ii)This depleted gold resources and at the time, sources were scarce. In 1923 Germany
refused to pay and France occupied Ruhr, to claim their coal.
(iii) Germany realized with passive resistance and printed paper currency recklessly, with too
much printed money in circulation the value of mark fell.
3. Describe the impact of Economic Depression on Germany.
Ans. (i) The German economy was worst hit by the economic crisis in 1932, industrial
production was reduced to 40'c of the 1929 level.
(ii) Workers lost their jobs or were paid reduced wages. The number of unemployed reached
6 million.
(iii) On the streets of Germany, you could be men with placards around their necks saying,
'willing to do any work.'
(iv) Unemployed youth played cards or simply set at street corners or desperately queued up
at the local employment exchange.
(v) As jobs disappeared, the youth took to criminal activities and total despair became
common place.
4. The Treaty of Versailles was harsh and humiliating towards Germany. Justify.
Ans. (i) The peace treaty of Versailles with the allies was a harsh and humiliating treaty.
(ii) Germany lost its overseas colonies, a tenth of its population 13% of its territories, 75%
of its iron and 26% of its coal to France Poland, Denmark and Lithonia.
(iii) The allied powers demilitarized Germany to weaken its power. The war guilt clause held
Germany responsible for was and damages the Allied countries suffered.
(iv) Germany was forced to pay compensation amounting to £6 billion. The allies also
occupied Rhineland.
(v) Many Germans held the new Weimar republic 1920, responsible for modernly the defeat
in the war between disgrace at Versailles.
5. How did Nazi party fair in politics of Germany from1923-1932?
Ans. (i) In 1923, Hitler planned to seize control of Bavaria, March to Berlin and capture
power.
(ii) He failed, was arrested, tribe for treason and later released. The Nazis could not effectively
mobilize support till the early 1920's.
(iii) It was during the great depression that Nazism became a mass movement. As we have
seen, after 1929, banks collapsed and businesses shut down, workers lost their jobs and middle
classes were threatened with destitution.
(vi) In such a situation Nazi propaganda stirred hoped of a better future. In 1928, the Nazi
party got no more than 2.6% water.
(v) By 1932, it had become the largest party with 37% water.
6. How did Hitler destroy the democracy in Germany? Explain.
Ans. (i) Hitler set out to dismantle the structure of democratic rules.
(ii) A mysterious fire that broke out in the German parliament building in February facilitated
his move.
(iii) The fire Degree of28 February 1933 indefinitely suspended civic rights like freedom of
speech guaranteed by Weimar constitution.
(iv) On 3 March 1933 the famous enabling act was passed. This act established dictatorship in
Germany.
(v) It gave all powers to sideline parliament and rule by decree.
7. How were the Jews worst sufferers in the Nazi Germany?
Ans. (i) Jews remained the worst sufferers in Nazi Germany. Nazi hatred by Jews had a processor
in the traditional Christian hostility towards Jews.
(ii) They had been stretched as Christ rulers and usurers, until medieval times Jews were banned
from awning land.
(iii) They survived mainly through trade and money lending. They lived in separately areas caused
Ghettos.
(iv) They were often persecuted through periodic organised violence and expulsion from land.
(5) Hitler's hatred of Jews was based on pseudoscientific theories of race, which held that
conversion was no solution to Jewish problem. It could only be resolved by Total Jewish
elimination.
8. How were the schools in Germany 'cleansed' and 'purified' under Nazi Rule?
Ans. (i) All the schools were cleansed and purified.
(ii) This meant that teachers who were Jews or seen as politically undesirable were dismissed.
(iii) Children were first segregated. Germans and Jews could not sit or play together.
(iv) Subsequently undesirable children --> Jews, the physically handicapped, gypsies-were
thrown out of schools.
(v) And finally, in the 1940's they were taken to gas chambers.
9. How did the common people react to Nazi's crime against humanity? Elaborate your answer
by giving four suitable examples.
ANS.
1. Many saw the world through Nazi eyes, and spoke their mind in Nazi language. They felt
hatred and anger surge inside them when they saw someone who looked like a Jew.
2. They marked the houses of Jews and reported suspicious neighbours. They genuinely
believed Nazism would bring prosperity and improve general well-being.
3. But not every German was a Nazi. Many organised active resistance to Nazism, braving
police repression and death.
4. The large majority of Germans, however, were passive onlookers and apathetic
witnesses.
5. They were too scared to act, to differ, to protest. They preferred to look away. Pastor
Niemoeller, a resistance fighter, observed an absence of protest, an uncanny silence,
amongst ordinary Germans in the face of brutal and organised crimes committed against
people in the Nazi empire.
Ans. (i) Many people felt hatred and anger inside them when they saw a Jews.
(ii) They marked the excuses of Jews and reported suspicious neighbours.
(iii) They genuinely believed Nazism would bring prosperity and general well-being.
(iv) Many people organised active resistance to Nazism braving police repression and death.
(v) The large majority of Germans however were passive onlookers and apathetic witnesses.
They were scared to act, to differ, to protest.
10. What were the reasons for the rise of Nazism?
Ans. (i) Hitler was a powerful speaker.
(ii) His passion and his words moved the people.
(iii) He promised to build a strong nation, do the injustice of the Versailles treaty, and restore
the dignity of Germans.
(iv) He promised employment for those looking for work and a secure future for the youth.
(v) He promised to use out all foreign influences and resists all foreign conspiracies against
Germany.
Level - 2
1. Explain Hitler's views about women and his policy towards them.
Ans. (i) In children Nazi Germany, were repeatedly told that women were radically different from
men. Girls had to maintain the purity of the race, distance themselves from Jews, look after the
home and teach their children Nazi values. They had to be the bearers of the Aryan culture and
race.
(ii) In 1933, Hitler said, "In my state the mother is the most important citizen. But in Nazi Germany
all mothers weren't treated equally."
(iii) Women who bore racially undesirable children were punished and those who produced
racially desirable children were awarded.
(iv) They were given favored treatment in hospitals and were also entitled to concessions in shops
and on theatre tickets and railway fares.
(v) To encourage women to produce many children, Honour Crosses were awarded.
2. State in brief the Nazi Party ideas on racial superiority.
Ans. (i) Nazi ideology was synonymous with Hitlar’s world view. According to this there was no
equality between people, but only a racial hierarchy.
(ii) In this view blond, blue-eyed, Nordic German Aryans were at the top, while Jews were
located at the lowest rung.
(iii) Hitler's racism was borrowed from thinkers like Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer.
(vi) According to this idea, only those species survived on earth that could adopt themselves to
changing climatic conditions.
(v) His ideas were used by racist thinkers & politicians to justify imperial rule over conquered
people.
(vi) The Nazi argument was simple: the strongest race would survive, and the weak ones would
perish. the Aryan race was the finest. It had to retain its purity, become stronger and dominate
the world.
3. State three ideology of Nazi party.
Ans. (i) Racial superiority- The Nazi party believed that Nordic German Aryans superior while
Jews were located at the lowest rung.
(ii) Nazi cult of motherhood-The mothers who bore racially undesirable children were punished.
Mothers of 'superior Aryans' were awarded and were given favoured treatment.
(iii) Discrimination of civil rights- According to Nazism, there was no equality between people.
The Nazis wanted to create a separate racial community of pure Germans by eliminating all
those who were seen as undesirable by them.
4. Write briefly on the Art of Propaganda in the Nazi Germany with special emphasis on the role
of media.
Ans. (i) The Nazi regime used language and media with care and often to great effect. The terms
they coined to describe their various practices aren't only deceptive.
(ii) They are chilling Nazis never used the words 'kill' or 'murder' in their official communications.
Mass killing were termed special treatment, final solution.
(iii) Media was carefully used to win support for the regime and popularise its worldview. Nazi
ideas were spread though visual images, films, radio, posters, catchy slogans and leaflets.
(iv) In posters, groups identified as the 'enemies' of the Germans were stereotyped, mocked, abused
and described as evil.
(v) Socialists and liberals were represented as weak and degenerate. They were attacked as
malicious foreign agents.
5. Describe the work of the various youth organizations to train the youth of Germany.
Ans. (i) Youth organisations were made responsible for educating German youth in the spirit of
National Socialism'.
(ii) Ten-year-old had to enter Jungvolk.
(iii) At 14, all boys had to join the Nazi youth organisation-Hilter youth-Where they learnt to
worship war, glorify aggression and violence, to stand against condemn democracy and hate Jews,
communists, Gypsies and all those categorised as 'undesirable'.
(vi) After a period of rigorous ideological and physical training they joined the labour service,
usually at the age of 18.
(v) Then they had to serve in the armed forces and enter one of the Nazi organisations.
6. How did the world come to know about the 'Nazi holocaust'? Explain.
Ans. (i) Information about Nazi practices had trickled out of Germany during the last years of
regime. But it was only after the war ended and Germany was defeated that the world came to
realise the horrors of what had happened.
(ii) While the Germans were preoccupied with their own plight as a defeated nation emerging out
of the rubble, the Jews wanted the world to remember the atrocities and sufferings they had
endured during the Nazi killing operations-also called the Holocaust.
(iii) At its height, a ghetto inhabitant had said to another that he wanted to outlive the war just for
half an hour.
(iv) Presumably he meant that he wanted to be able to tell the world about what had happened in
Nazi Germany
(v) This indomitable spirit to bear witness and to preserve the documents can be seen in many
ghetto camp inhabitants who wrote diaries, kept notebooks and created achieve.
7. What were the main features of Hitler's geopolitical concept of 'Lebensraum'? Give three features.
Ans. (i) Another aspect of Hitler's ideology related to the geopolitical concept of Lebensraum or
living space He believe that new territories had to be acquired for settlement.
(ii) This would enhance the area of the mother country, while enabling the settlers on new lands to
retain an intimate link with the place of their origin.
(iii) It would also enhance the material resources and power of the German nation.
(iv) Hitler intended to extend German boundaries by moving eastwards, to concentrate all Germans
graphically in one place. Poland became the laboratory for this experimentation.
8. How did the US come to the rescue of Germany at the time of the financial crisis?
Ans. (1) In 1923, Germany refused to pay the loans due to which French occupied Ruhr to claim
their coal.
(ii) Germany retaliated with printed-paper currency recklessly. With too much printed money in
circulation the value of German mark fell.
(iii) This led to soaring of prices of goods (Germans had to carry cartloads of currency notes to by
a loaf of bread).
(iv) This image widely publicizes evoking worldwide sympathy.
(v) Eventually, the American (USA) intervened and boiled Germany out of the crisis by
introducing the 'Dawes Plan'. This rewarded the terms of reparation to ease the financial burden
on Germans.
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