Hitler’s rise to power
biography
• Austrian, not German!
• weak student
• Unsuccessful application
to Vienna Academy of
Fine Arts
• Orphaned by 19 years old
• A corporal in WWI
• Brave: Iron Cross Second
Class and First Class
1920s
• leader of the Nazis by
1921
• Spellbinding speaker
• Beer Hall Putsch 1923;
charged with treason
• Mein Kampf = My
Struggle
Hitler’s philosophy
• Superiority of the Aryan
race
• Swastika – ancient
symbol = “being
fortunate”
• True Aryans: Iran,
Afghanistan, Pakistan;
Indo-Arabian languages
• “Stabbed in the Back”
Theory
"Pictures of German races" http://www.rabenclan.de/index.php/Magazin/SvenScholzAryanE
Hitler’s philosophy continued
• Successful cultures of
past weakened by
“effeminate” JewishChristian ethic
• Iron will to dominate
lesser Slavic nations
• lebensraum
• Soviet Union his natural
enemy (communists and
Jews and Slavs)
• Personal freedoms bad
• Volk  collective will
• “We are barbarians”
(good!  action over
thought)
• 1924: “Democracy must
be destroyed by the
weapons of
democracy.”
• Problem for Hitler:
economy getting better
in 1924
Late 1920s
• Election results: (608 seats
total)
• 1928 12 seats
• Stock market crash helped
Hitler – what’s the lesson
for today??
• 1930 107 seats (#2 place)
(unemployment 4 million)
• Runs for President against
Hindenburg.
• Loses! But...
1930s
• Hindenburg 49.6% of vote (not
majority)
• Hitler gets support of
millionaire publisher – owns
53 newspapers
• 1932 Election -230 seats. Nazis
win!
• Hitler offered Vice-Chancellor
job (like Deputy PM).
• Declines, demands
Chancellorship. Alles oder
Nichts.
• Hindenburg fears Civil War,
so...
Power
• Hitler gets Chancellor’s
job if he promises only
3 Nazis in Cabinet.
• Hitler chooses...
• Burning of the
Reichstag Feb 1933
Power continued
• Elections 1933: Nazis
44%  no majority, no
ability to change
Constitution
Enabling Act, 1933 and beyond
• 23 March 1933
• Required 2/3 majority,
but...
• 94 people dissented (24
of them later murdered)
• July 1933 only political
party allowed is Nazis
• Creates SS (for
conquests outside
Germany)
http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/33d/prevyears/33
d03/33d03l05-1930s.htm
• You have delivered up our holy German
fatherland to one of the greatest
demagogues of all time. I solemnly prophesy
that this accursed man will cast our Reich
into the abyss and bring our nation to
inconceivable misery. Future generations
will damn you in your grave for what you
have done.
• Ludendorff, writing to Hindenburg, 1933
• Who is Ludendorff?
What the king conquered, the prince shaped, the field marshal
defended, the soldier rescued and united.
(September 1933 Nazi Congress at Nuremburg)
Rohm’s ambition
• SA (4.5 million) to replace Reichswehr
Night of the Long Knives
• June 29 – 30, 1934
• (May 1934, gets Army & Navy
on his side)
• SS arrests Rohm
• Officially 82 murdered
• Actually 400+ (people inside
and outside Nazi Party)
• Paranoia!
• Hitler: “I have taken a bath and
feel as clean as a newborn
babe again.”
• President Hindenburg
dies – wants monarchy restored
• Hitler merges role of
President and
Chancellor into
• DER FUHRER
• All swear unconditional
obedience to der Führer
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
• “The Second Coming” WB Yeats, 1919
Nazification of Germany
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Censorship
Trade unions banned
Churches persecuted,
Hitler Youth created
1935 Nürmberg Laws
1936 economy;
Strength Through Joy;
volkswagen
• Autobahn!
•
http://www.uncp.edu/home/rwb/propagand
a_kdf.jpg
Burning books in Berlin
http://www.uncp.edu/home/rwb/hst430_p2.htm
Judicial System?
• Secret police
• "Special Court" political
crimes
• "Peoples Court" for
accusations of treason
Breaking the Treaty of Versailles
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1935 rearmament: “Wir wollen wieder Waffen”
1936 Germany occupies Rhineland
<1936 Berlin Olympics>
1936 Spanish Civil War begins. Practices
blitzkrieg. Guernica
1938 March: Anschluss
1938 Sept.: Sudetenland (CZ); Munich Agreement
1939 March: all of Czechoslovakia
1939 September WWII begins
“Little Hitler”
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcrRrst1i
0g
What other leaders thought about
Hitler...
• "I have never met a happier people than the Germans
and Hitler is one of the
greatest men. The old trust him; the young idolise
him. It is the worship of a national
hero who has saved his country."
• David Lloyd George, Daily Express, 17.9.1936
• “the world will yet come to see a very great man mystic in Hitler. [...] I cannot abide in Nazism -- the
regimentation -- cruelty -- oppression of Jews -attitude towards religion, etc., but Hitler, him -- the
peasant -- will rank some day with Joan of Arc
among the deliverers of his people.”
• Mackenzie King, Canadian Prime Minister, Diary, 1937
• "In fifteen years that have followed this resolve, he
has succeeded in restoring Germany to the most
powerful position in Europe, and not only has he
restored the position of his country, but he has even,
to a very great extent, reversed the results of the
Great War.... the vanquished are in the process of
becoming the victors and the victors the
vanquished.... whatever else might be thought about
these exploits they are certainly among the most
remarkable in the whole history of the world."
• Winston Churchill, 1935.
Hitler quotes
• I use emotion for the many and reserve
reason for the few.
• If you tell a big enough lie and tell it
frequently enough, it will be believed.
• The art of leadership... consists in
consolidating the attention of the people
against a single adversary and taking care
that nothing will split up that attention.
Der Führer’s Face
Spike Jones & His City Slickers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LYD0Fzf1LU
•
CHORUS
When der fuehrer says we is de master race
We heil (pffft) heil (pffft) right in Der Fuehrer's Face
Not to love der fuehrer is a great disgrace
So we heil (pffft) heil (pffft) right in Der Fuehrer's
Face
•
When Herr Goebbels says we own the world and
space
We heil (pffft) heil (pffft) right in Herr Goebbels'
face
When Herr Goering says they'll never bomb dis
place
We heil (pffft) heil (pffft) right in Herr Goering's face
•
Are we not the supermen, Aryan pure supermen?
Ja we are the supermen (super duper supermen)
Is this Nutzi land so good
Would you leave it if you could?
Ja this Nutzi land is good
We would leave it if we could
•
We bring the world New Order
Heil Hitler's world New Order
Everyone of foreign race
Will love der fuehrer's face
When we bring to the world dis order
http://www.uncp.edu/home/rwb/hst430_p2.htm