Effects on Germany

• Germany received short-term loans largely from the US.

• Industrial production reduced.  

• Workers lost their jobs.

• Youth took to criminal activities.

• Small businessmen and self-employed suffered as their businesses got ruined.

• People lost confidence in the democratic parliamentary system, which seemed to offer no solutions.

HITLER’s Rise to Power

• Hitler was born in Austria in 1889.  

• He acted as a messenger, corporal in the First World War.  

• He joined the German Workers Party and renamed it National Socialist German Workers' Party.  

→ This later came to be known as the Nazi Party.

→ By 1932, it had become the largest party with 37 percent votes.

• Nazism became a mass movement only during the Great Depression.

• By 1932, it had become the largest party with 37 percent votes.

The Destruction of  Democracy  

• On 30 January 1933, Hitler achieved the highest position in the cabinet of ministries.  

• Hitler now set out to dismantle the structures of democratic rule.  

• The Fire Decree of 28 February 1933 suspended civic rights like freedom of speech, press and assembly.  

• Communists were hurriedly packed off to newly established concentration camps.  

• All political parties were banned.  

• Special surveillance and security forces were created to control the people and rule with impunity.

Reconstruction

• Hjalmar Schacht took over the responsibility of economic recover.

• The state funded project produced the famous German superhighways and the people’s car, the Volkswagen.

• Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936.

• He integrated Austria and Germany in 1938.

• Acquired German-speaking Sudentenland.

• Hitler chose war to recover from economic crisis.

World War II

• On September 1939, Germany invaded Poland  

• Started a war with France and England.

• In September 1940, a Tripartite Pact was signed between Germany, Italy and Japan.

• In June 1941, Germany attacked Soviet Union.

• Germany exposed through both sides.

→ From the western front – to Britishers.

→ From the eastern front – to Soviet Armies.

• Soviet Army defeated Germany at Stalingrad.

• Japan bombed the US base at Pearl Harbor.

• US entered the war.

• US drops atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.

• The war ended in May 1945 with Hitler’s defeat.

The Nazi World View

• According to Nazi ideology there was no equality between people, but only RACIAL hierarchy.

→ Nordic German Aryans were at the top, while Jews were at the lowest while all other races are between them.

• New territories had to be acquired for settlement of Nordic German Aryans race.

The Racial Utopia

• Hitler divided and occupied north-western Poland.

• Poles were forced to leave their homes.

• Educated Polish classes were murdered.

Youth in Nazi Germany

• All schools were cleansed and purified means Jews teachers were dismissed.

• Jews, the physically handicapped and Gypsies were thrown out of schools and later sent to the gas chambers.

• A prolonged period of ideological training for good German students.

• School textbooks were rewritten.  

• Racial science was introduced to justify Nazi ideas of race.

• Children were taught to be loyal and submissive, hate Jews, and worship Hitler.

• Ten-year-olds had to enter Jungvolk.  

• At 14, all boys had to join the Nazi youth ORGANISATION – Hitler Youth.

• They joined the Labour Service at 18.

The Nazi Cult of Motherhood

• Boys were taught to be aggressive, masculine and steel hearted.  

• Girls had to become good mothers and REAR pure-blooded Aryan children.

• All mothers were not treated equally.

• Women who bore racially undesirable children were punished.  

• Women who produced racially desirable children were awarded.

• Honour Crosses were awarded to encourage women to produce many children.

• Women who didn’t follow prescribed code of conduct were publicly condemned, and severely punished.

The Art of Propaganda

• Mass killings were termed special treatment, final solution, euthanasia, selection and disinfection.

• Nazi ideas were spread through visual images, films, radio, posters, catchy slogans and leaflets.

• In posters, enemies of Germans such as Jews were shown as evil.

Crimes against Humanity

• Many people were influence by the idea of Nazi.

• They believed Nazism would bring prosperity and improve general well-being.

• Every German was not a Nazi.

• Large majority of Germans were passive onlookers.

The Holocaust

• Jews collected and preserved documents wrote diaries, KEPT notebooks, and created archives which  

are called the Holocaust.

• Jews wanted the world to remember the atrocities and sufferings they had endured during the Nazi killing operation.