The Rise of Hitler Great speaker Created popular NAZI party SA (sturmabteilung)– brownshirts...

The Rise of HitlerThe Rise of Hitler

Great speaker Created popular NAZI party SA (sturmabteilung)– brownshirts

Hitler’s Rise

11/08/1923 - Hitler & co surround gov’t

officials in a beer hall in Munich Goal - turn gov’t over to military

Force them to swear loyalty to him Unsuccessful Hitler sent to prison for high treason

Beer Hall Putsch

Freed from prison - Nazi party grew

2nd largest political party in DE President - Paul von Hindenburg reluctantly

appointed Hitler Chancellor Reichstag Fire - blamed on communists

(probably was Hitler) Enabling Act - right to enact laws w/o

Reichstag (4 yrs) Article 48 - gov’t right to curtail

constitutional rights in emergencies Hitler became a dictator through “legal”

means

Rise

Schutzstaffeln “Guard Squadrons” “SS”

Important in keeping order Orig Hitler’s bodyguards Under Heinrich Himmler – controlled secret &

regular police Terror – repression & murder, secret & criminal

police, concentration camps, execution squads, death camps

Terror

• Seemed to solve financial woes• Public works projects• Rearmament program• Unemployment dropped from 6 mill in 1932

to 500,000 in 1937• Mass demonstrations• Nazi youth• “Get ahold of pots and pans and broom and

you’ll sooner find a groom!”

Why was Hitler popular?

By 1933 – 50 concentration camps

25,000 Socialists, Communists, & Jews imprisoned

1933 - Boycott of Jewish businesses Detrimental to economy

The Beginning…

anti-Semitic laws 04/07/33 – Restoration of the Professional Civil

Service No Jewish gov’t employee

04/21/33 – ritual prep of meat forbidden 04/25/33 – quotas for GER schools/uni No Jewish dr.’s, pharmacists, lawyers, athletes

“paper violence”

Aryan ancestry

Had to prove Priests, pastors, clerks

Defined Jewish 3 Jewish grandparents 2 Jewish grandparents + belonged to Jewish

community married to a Jew offspring of a Jew

37,000 GER Jews emigrated Cost of flights high Some hoped it would pass

Result

11/09/38 - Night of broken glass Massive, coordinated attack on Jews Response to GER embassy staff murder in

Paris SA, SS, Hitler Youth beat & murdered

Broke into & destroyed homes Brutalized women & children Burned down synagogues

US recalled its ambassador

Kristallnacht

7500 business destroyed 1,668 synagogues ransacked, 267 burned 91 Jews killed 25,000 Jewish men concentration camps Forced to clean up damage bc of

Kristalnacht Banned from public transportation &

buildings / retail stores

Kristallnacht

Legal acts of discrimination Announced at Party Rally in Nuremberg Law for the Protection of German Blood and

German Honor Prohibited marriages and xtra marital relations

between Jews and GERs The Reich Citizenship Law

Stripped Jews of citizenship

Nuremberg Laws - 1935

Rhineland (strip of land in DE bordering on FR, BE, NL) demilitarized No DE troops to be stationed there Aim - increase FR security by making it

impossible for DE to invade FR by surprise Restrict DE army to 100,000 men, navy to

36 ships

Treaty of Versailles Revisited

Locarno Treaty reasserted demilitarization

Voluntarily signed FR concerned about safety - especially with

Hitler in charge DE began to re-arm

Treaty of Versailles Revisited

Early 1936 Hitler decided to reoccupy the

Rhineland Franco-Soviet pact of 1935

Renewed alliance Defense strategy?

Occupation of the Rhineland

• DE re-armament not ready for a well-armed nation like FR

• FR - verge of elections - politicians unwilling to take unpopular actions

• FR look to GB• GB felt Treaty was unfair– Simply re-claiming what was theirs– Plus GB didn’t want another war

• League of Nations - condemned but no economic/military sanctions

Gamble

Hitler moved from the occupation of the

Rhineland in 1936 to Annexation of Austria and Seizure of Sudetenland in 1938 and Takeover of Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1939

Results

Hitler wanted AT and CZ in 3rd Reich AT created after WWI

Majority of pop was German

03/12/38 - DE marched into AT unopposed

03/13 - DE announced Anschluss or union w/ AT

US & world did nothing

Austria & Czechoslovakia Fall

CZ - 3 mill Germans (Sudetenland)

More space & natural resources Hitler accused Czechs of abusing Sudeten

Germans FR & GB promised to protect CZ War seemed inevitable

Austria & Czechoslovakia Fall

Hitler invited Edouard Daladier & Neville

Chamberlain to Munich Fuhrer declared annexation of Sudetenland

was his last Eager to avoid war - they believed him 09/30/38 - Munich Agreement

Turned Sudetenland over w/o a single shot

Munich Agreement

The Munich conference. From left: Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, Ciano.

Chamberlain’s satisfaction not shared w/

Churchill Appeasement - giving up principles to pacify an

aggressor

“Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor. They will have war.”

Winston Churchill

Churchill right 03/15/39 - Hitler invaded rest of CZ Then he wanted Poland

“mistreatment of Germans” Stalin’s surprise

Nonaggression pact w/ Hitler Committed to never attacking each other

Secret pact - divide Poland 2 front war eliminated

DE Offensive

“Lightning war” 09/01/39 - Luftwaffe (air force) dropped bombs

over PL Same time - DE tanks

09/03 - GB & FR declare war on DE Blitzkrieg successful - 3 wks USSR attacked PL from east PL gone, and WWII began

Blitzkrieg