Nazi Germany

Background Further information: Adolf Hitler's rise to power Severe setbacks to the German economy began after World War I ended, partly because of reparations payments required under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles . The government printed money to make the payments and to repay the country's war debt, but the resulting hyperinflation led to inflated prices, economic chaos, and food riots. [ 1 ] When the government defaulted on their reparations payments in January 1923, French troops occupied German industrial areas along the Ruhr and widespread civil unrest followed. [ 2 ] The National Socialist German Workers' Party , commonly known as the Nazi Party, was founded in 1920. [ 3 ] The Nazi party platform included destruction of the Weimar Republic, rejection of the Treaty of Versailles, radical antisemitism , and anti- Bolshevism . [ 4 ] They promised a strong central government, increased Lebensraum ("living space") for Germanic peoples, formation of a national community based on race, and racial cleansing via the active suppression of Jews , who would be stripped of their citizenship and civil rights. [ 5 ] The Nazis proposed national and cultural renewal based upon the Völkisch movement . [ 6 ] The party, especially its paramilitary organisation Sturmabteilung (SA; Storm Detachment), or Brownshirts, used physical violence to advance their political position, disrupting the meetings of rival organisations and attacking their members as well as Jewish people on the streets. [ 7 ] Such far-right armed groups were common in Bavaria , and were tolerated by the sympathetic far-right state government of Gustav Ritter von Kahr . [ 8 ] When the stock market in the United States crashed in 1929 , the effect in Germany was dire. [ 9 ] Millions were thrown out of work and several major banks collapsed. Hitler and the Nazis prepared to take advantage of the emergency to gain support for their party. They promised to strengthen the economy and provide jobs. [ 10 ] Many voters decided the Nazi Party was capable of restoring order, quelling civil unrest, and improving Germany's international reputation. After the federal election of 1932 , the party was the largest in the Reichstag , holding 230 seats with 37.4 per cent of the popular vote. [ 11 ] ^ Evans 2003 , pp. 103–108. ^ Evans 2003 , pp. 186–187. ^ Evans 2003 , pp. 170–171. ^ Goldhagen 1996 , p. 85. ^ Evans 2003 , pp. 179–180. ^ Kershaw 2008 , p. 81. ^ Evans 2003 , pp. 180–181. ^ Evans 2003 , pp. 181, 189. ^ Childers 2017 , p. 103. ^ Shirer 1960 , pp. 136–137. ^ Goldhagen 1996 , p. 87. Read more on Wikipedia →

Military and paramilitary Wehrmacht Main article: Wehrmacht See also: Myth of the clean Wehrmacht A column of tanks and other armoured vehicles of the Panzerwaffe near Stalingrad , 1942 The unified armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945 were called the Wehrmacht (defence force). This included the Heer (army), Kriegsmarine (navy), and the Luftwaffe (air force). From 2 August 1934, members of the armed forces were required to pledge an oath of unconditional obedience to Hitler personally. In contrast to the previous oath, which required allegiance to the constitution of the country and its lawful establishments, this new oath required members of the military to obey Hitler even if they were being ordered to do something illegal. [ 1 ] Hitler decreed that the army would have to tolerate and even offer logistical support to the Einsatzgruppen —the mobile death squads responsible for millions of murders in Eastern Europe—when it was tactically possible to do so. [ 2 ] Wehrmacht troops also participated directly in the Holocaust by shooting civilians or committing genocide under the guise of anti-partisan operations. [ 3 ] The party line was that the Jews were the instigators of the partisan struggle and therefore needed to be eliminated. [ 4 ] On 8 July 1941 Heydrich announced that all Jews in the eastern conquered territories were to be regarded as partisans and gave the order for all male Jews between the ages of 15 and 45 to be shot. [ 5 ] By August, this was extended to include the entire Jewish population. [ 6 ] In spite of efforts to prepare the country militarily, the economy could not sustain a lengthy war of attrition. A strategy was developed based on the tactic of Blitzkrieg ("lightning war"), which involved using quick coordinated assaults that avoided enemy strong points. Attacks began with artillery bombardment, followed by bombing and strafing runs. Next the tanks would attack and finally the infantry would move in to secure the captured area. [ 7 ] Victories continued through mid-1940, but the failure to defeat Britain was the first major turning point in the war. The decision to attack the Soviet Union and the decisive defeat at Stalingrad led to the retreat of the German armies and the eventual loss of the war. [ 8 ] The total number of soldiers who served in the Wehrmacht from 1935 to 1945 was around 18.2 million, of whom 5.3 million died. [ 9 ] SA and SS Main articles: Sturmabteilung and Schutzstaffel The Sturmabteilung (SA; Storm Detachment), or Brownshirts, founded in 1921, was the first paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party; their initial assignment was to protect Nazi leaders at rallies and assemblies. [ 10 ] They also took part in street battles against the forces of rival political parties and violent actions against Jews and others. [ 11 ] Under Ernst Röhm 's leadership the SA grew by 1934 to over half a million members—4.5 million including reserves—at a time when the regular army was still limited to 100,000 men by the Versailles Treaty. [ 12 ] Röhm hoped to assume command of the army and absorb it into the ranks of the SA. [ 13 ] Hindenburg and Defence Minister Werner von Blomberg threatened to impose martial law if the activities of the SA were not curtailed. [ 14 ] Therefore, less than a year and a half after seizing power, Hitler ordered the deaths of the SA leadership, including Rohm. After the purge of 1934, the SA was no longer a major force. [ 15 ] Initially a small bodyguard unit under the auspices of the SA, the Schutzstaffel (SS; Protection Squadron) grew to become one of the largest and most powerful groups in Nazi Germany. [ 16 ] Led by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler from 1929, the SS had over a quarter million members by 1938. [ 17 ] Himmler initially envisioned the SS as being an elite group of guards, Hitler's last line of defence. [ 18 ] The Waffen-SS , the military branch of the SS, evolved into a second army. It was dependent on the regular army for heavy weaponry and equipment, and most units were under tactical control of the High Command of the Armed Forces (OKW). [ 19 ] [ 20 ] By the end of 1942, the stringent selection and racial requirements that had initially been in place were no longer followed. With recruitment and conscription based only on expansion, by 1943 the Waffen-SS could not longer claim to be an elite fighting force. [ 21 ] SS formations committed many war crimes against civilians and allied servicemen. [ 22 ] From 1935 onward, the SS spearheaded the persecution of Jews, who were rounded up into ghettos and concentration camps. [ 23 ] With the outbreak of World War II, the SS Einsatzgruppen units followed the army into Poland and the Soviet Union, where from 1941 to 1945 they murdered more than two million people, including 1.3 million Jews. [ 24 ] A third of the Einsatzgruppen members were recruited from Waffen-SS personnel. [ 25 ] [ 26 ] The SS-Totenkopfverbände (death's head units) ran the concentration camps and extermination camps , where millions more were murdered. [ 27 ] [ 28 ] Up to 60,000 Waffen-SS men served in the camps. [ 29 ] In 1931 Himmler organised an SS intelligence service which became known as the Sicherheitsdienst (SD; Security Service) under his deputy, Heydrich. [ 30 ] This organisation was tasked with locating and arresting communists and other political opponents. [ 31 ] [ 32 ] Himmler established the beginnings of a parallel economy under the auspices of the SS Economy and Administration Head Office. This holding company owned housing corporations, factories, and publishing houses. [ 33 ] [ 34 ] ^ Evans 2005 , pp. 43–45. ^ Longerich 2010 , p. 146. ^ Longerich 2010 , pp. 242–247. ^ Kershaw 2000b , p. 467. ^ Longerich 2010 , p. 198. ^ Longerich 2010 , p. 207. ^ Constable 1988 , pp. 139, 154. ^ Evans 2008 , pp. 760–761. ^ Overmans 2000 , p. Bd. 46. ^ Weale 2012 , pp. 15–16. ^ Weale 2012 , pp. 70, 166. ^ Weale 2012 , p. 88. ^ Kershaw 2008 , p. 306. ^ Tooze 2006 , p. 67. ^ Kershaw 2008 , pp. 306–313. ^ Weale 2012 , pp. 1, 26–29. ^ Longerich 2012 , pp. 113, 255. ^ Longerich 2012 , pp. 122–123. ^ Stein 2002 , pp. 18, 23, 287. ^ Weale 2012 , p. 195. ^ Wegner 1990 , pp. 307, 313, 325, 327–331. ^ Stein 2002 , pp. 75–76, 276–280. ^ Longerich 2012 , p. 215. ^ Kershaw 2008 , pp. 518–519. ^ Bartrop & Jacobs 2014 , p. 1424. ^ Rhodes 2002 , p. 257. ^ Weale 2012 , p. 116. ^ Evans 2008 , p. 318. ^ Wiederschein 2015 . ^ Longerich 2012 , p. 125. ^ Longerich 2012 , pp. 212–213. ^ Weale 2012 , p. 411. ^ Sereny 1996 , pp. 323, 329. ^ Evans 2008 , p. 343. Read more on Wikipedia →

Culture See also: Nazi propaganda If the experience of the Third Reich teaches us anything, it is that a love of great music, great art and great literature does not provide people with any kind of moral or political immunization against violence, atrocity, or subservience to dictatorship. —  Richard J. Evans ,  The Coming of the Third Reich (2003) The regime promoted the concept of Volksgemeinschaft , a national German ethnic community. The goal was to build a classless society based on racial purity and the perceived need to prepare for warfare, conquest and a struggle against Marxism. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] The German Labour Front founded the Kraft durch Freude (KdF; Strength Through Joy) organisation in 1933. As well as taking control of tens of thousands of privately run recreational clubs, it offered highly regimented holidays and entertainment such as cruises, vacation destinations and concerts. [ 3 ] [ 4 ] The Reich Chamber of Culture was organised under the control of the Propaganda Ministry in September 1933. Sub-chambers were set up to control aspects of cultural life such as film, radio, newspapers, fine arts, music, theatre, and literature. Members of these professions were required to join their respective organisation. Jews and people considered politically unreliable were prevented from working in the arts, and many emigrated. Books and scripts had to be approved by the Propaganda Ministry prior to publication. [ 5 ] For example, the Reich Chamber of Literature regulated 3,000 authors, 2,500 publishers, 23,000 bookshops, and around 50 national literary prizes at the start of the war. Germany saw the publication of 20,000 new titles annually, then the highest in Europe. Mein Kampf , the bestseller by Hitler, was present in most households but was seldom actually read. [ 6 ] Standards deteriorated as the regime sought to use cultural outlets exclusively as propaganda. [ 7 ] Radio became popular in Germany during the 1930s; over 70 per cent of households owned a receiver by 1939, more than any other country. By July 1933, radio station staffs were purged of leftists and others deemed undesirable. [ 8 ] Propaganda and speeches were typical radio fare immediately after the seizure of power, but as time went on Goebbels insisted more music should be played so that listeners would not turn to foreign broadcasters for entertainment. [ 9 ] A Nazi book burning on 10 May 1933 in Berlin, as books by Jewish and leftist authors are burnt [ 10 ] Censorship See also: List of authors banned in Nazi Germany Newspapers, like other media, were controlled by the state; the Reich Press Chamber shut down or bought newspapers and publishing houses. By 1939 over two-thirds of the newspapers and magazines were directly owned by the Propaganda Ministry. [ 11 ] The Nazi Party daily newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter ("Ethnic Observer"), was edited by Rosenberg. [ 12 ] Goebbels controlled the wire services and insisted that all newspapers in Germany should only publish content favourable to the regime. Under Goebbels, the Propaganda Ministry issued two dozen directives every week on exactly what news should be published and what angles to use; the typical newspaper followed the directives closely, especially regarding what to omit. [ 13 ] Newspaper readership plummeted, partly because of the perceived decreased quality of the content and partly because of the surge in popularity of radio. [ 14 ] Propaganda became less effective towards the end of the war, as people were able to obtain information outside official channels. [ 15 ] Many authors left the country and some wrote material critical of the regime while in exile. Goebbels recommended that the remaining authors should concentrate on books themed on Germanic myths and the concept of blood and soil . By the end of 1933 over a thousand books—most of them by Jewish authors or featuring Jewish characters—had been banned by the Nazi regime. [ 16 ] Nazi book burnings took place; nineteen such events were held on the night of 10 May 1933. [ 10 ] Tens of thousands of books from dozens of figures, including Albert Einstein , Sigmund Freud , Helen Keller , Alfred Kerr , Marcel Proust , Erich Maria Remarque , Upton Sinclair , Jakob Wassermann , H. G. Wells , and Émile Zola were publicly burnt. Pacifist works, and literature espousing liberal, democratic values were targeted for destruction, as well as any writings supporting the Weimar Republic or those written by Jewish authors. [ 17 ] Architecture and art Main articles: Nazi architecture and Art in Nazi Germany See also: Music in Nazi Germany Plans for Berlin called for the Volkshalle (People's Hall) and a triumphal arch to be built at either end of a wide boulevard. Hitler took a personal interest in architecture and worked closely with the state architects Paul Troost and Albert Speer to create public buildings in a neoclassical style based on Roman architecture . [ 18 ] [ 19 ] Speer constructed imposing structures such as the Nazi party rally grounds in Nuremberg and a new Reich Chancellery building in Berlin. [ 20 ] Hitler's plans for rebuilding Berlin included a gigantic dome based on the Pantheon in Rome and a triumphal arch more than double the height of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Neither structure was built. [ 21 ] Hitler's belief that abstract , Dadaist , expressionist and modern art were decadent became the basis for policy. [ 22 ] Many art museum directors lost their posts in 1933 and were replaced by party members. [ 23 ] Some 6,500 modern works of art were removed from museums and replaced with works chosen by a Nazi jury. [ 24 ] Exhibitions of the rejected pieces, under titles such as "Decadence in Art", were launched in sixteen different cities by 1935. The Degenerate Art Exhibition , organised by Goebbels, ran in Munich from July to November 1937. The exhibition proved wildly popular, attracting over two million visitors. [ 25 ] The composer Richard Strauss was appointed president of the Reichsmusikkammer (Reich Music Chamber) on its founding in November 1933. [ 26 ] As was the case with other art forms, the Nazis ostracised musicians who were deemed racially unacceptable and for the most part disapproved of music that was too modern or atonal . [ 27 ] Jazz was considered especially inappropriate and foreign jazz musicians left the country or were expelled. [ 28 ] Hitler favoured the music of Richard Wagner , especially pieces based on Germanic myths and heroic stories, and attended the Bayreuth Festival each year from 1933 to 1942. [ 29 ] Film Main article: Nazism and cinema Leni Riefenstahl (behind cameraman) at the 1936 Summer Olympics Movies were popular in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, with admissions of over a billion people in 1942, 1943, and 1944. [ 30 ] [ 31 ] By 1934, German regulations restricting currency exports made it impossible for US filmmakers to take their profits back to America, so the major film studios closed their German branches. Exports of German films plummeted, as their antisemitic content made them impossible to show in other countries. The two largest film companies, Universum Film AG and Tobis , were purchased by the Propaganda Ministry, which by 1939 was producing most German films. The productions were not always overtly propagandistic, but generally had a political subtext and followed party lines regarding themes and content. Scripts were pre-censored. [ 32 ] Leni Riefenstahl 's Triumph of the Will (1935)—documenting the 1934 Nuremberg Rally—and Olympia (1938)—covering the 1936 Summer Olympics —pioneered techniques of camera movement and editing that influenced later films. New techniques such as telephoto lenses and cameras mounted on tracks were employed. Both films remain controversial, as their aesthetic merit is inseparable from their propagandising of Nazi ideals. [ 33 ] [ 34 ] ^ Grunberger 1971 , p. 18. ^ Kershaw 2008 , pp. 182, 203, 272. ^ Evans 2005 , pp. 465–467. ^ Shirer 1960 , p. 265. ^ Shirer 1960 , pp. 241–242. ^ Petropoulos 2018 , p. 146. ^ Shirer 1960 , p. 242. ^ Evans 2005 , pp. 133–135. ^ Evans 2005 , p. 136. ^ a b Evans 2005 , p. 16. ^ Evans 2005 , pp. 143–144. ^ Shirer 1960 , p. 149. ^ Dussel 2010 , pp. 545, 555–557. ^ Evans 2005 , pp. 146–147. ^ Dussel 2010 , pp. 561. ^ Evans 2005 , pp. 152–159. ^ Shirer 1960 , p. 241. ^ Scobie 1990 , p. 92. ^ Evans 2005 , p. 181. ^ Speer 1971 , pp. 92, 150–151. ^ Speer 1971 , pp. 115–116, 190. ^ Evans 2005 , p. 168. ^ Evans 2005 , p. 169. ^ Shirer 1960 , pp. 243–244. ^ Evans 2005 , pp. 171, 173. ^ Evans 2005 , p. 187. ^ Evans 2005 , p. 199. ^ Evans 2005 , p. 204. ^ Evans 2005 , pp. 199–200. ^ Evans 2005 , p. 130. ^ SPIO, Department of Statistics . ^ Evans 2005 , pp. 130–132. ^ The Daily Telegraph , 2003 . ^ Evans 2005 , pp. 125–126. Read more on Wikipedia →