How did the Nazis gain and maintain power in Germany?

• Germany was not the only country to pursue this policy: England, France, Italy and Japan tried to do the same
• Germany was different though, Autarky linked to German nationalism

• Strong political current for the Nazi party
• Racial meanings too: Jews represented capitalism and were blamed for its failure, so the move away from this economic policy equalled a move away from the Jews
• Hitler and many other Germans believed defeat in the First World War was due to the civilians back home ‘stabbing the army in the back’. By not producing enough they sabotaged the war effort.
• Autarky would be essential to future German wars

• Everyone in Germany believed that they should reduce trade and reliance on other countries.
• From 1933 trade with other countries was closely monitored
• Germany stopped taking foreign loans and paid back those which it owed very quickly
• Takes had to be increased to pay for this and internal state investment
• By 1936 Germany was back to 1929 standards
• By 1939 the economy had grown by 50%
• All of this was done to fight war, economy in 1913 was not in a position to go to war.
• Hitler wrote his four year plan in 1936
• Hitler didn’t write much during 1933-45
• Hitler did not want the economy recovering to benefit living standards
• Economy must gear itself to produce war materials
• Government grants were given to encourage machine production, aluminium, oil, rubber and textile manufacture.
• Hitler put goring at the head of the four year plan.
• Goring was not an economist, but he would pursue the programme with determination.
• 2/3rds of industrial investment in 1939 was related to the four-year plan.
• Decision to embrace Autarky in 1936 was done with war in mind.
• State assumed more responsibility in economy by 1939.
• Hitler stopped living standards from benefiting from the improved economy.
• Very much like communist regime regarding economic control
• However people did not starve.
• Germany needed more raw materials to improve its economic situation.
•  Hitler invaded surrounding countries to get raw materials in order to pursue autarky.
• Germany was becoming an economic super power and may have been unstoppable if left alone in 1939.
• Autarky was a reality, Germany was more or less self-sufficient by 1939.
• If Germany had not stumbled in to war in 1939 then the economic programmes would have completed and Germany would have been unstoppable.
• American economy expanded, they did not use Autarky and improved living standards were the result.
• Hitler had begun to move towards a direct state control of the economy.

Was the Weimar Republic doomed from the start?

• 1918-1920

• The army made the government talk with the allies to avoid blame for defeat.
• The Allies refused to negotiate while the Kaiser was still in power.
• Ebert was allowed to form a government, the Weimar regime was planned and the Kaiser went into exile.
• Ebert negotiated with the nationalists and the army. The government began to rely on the right wing. This weakened the republic as the left wing never united, and so was unable to challenge the right wing.
• The Weimar republic was surrounded by social and political tensions.
• The system of proportional representation didn’t work very well. The voters couldn’t vote for their local representatives, just parties.
• The constitution was quite advanced, too advanced for the industrialists.
• The president had too much power, article 48 was a dangerous clause.
• Few people believed in the republic ‘we have a republic but no republicans’.
• The country was filled with violence
• There was anti-Semitism
• Assassinations and murders were common
• The left wing was severely punished while the right wing was let off leniently
• War had been brought to an end
• Economy was returned to peace time status
• Treaty of Versailles was not as harsh as it had once been
• The German industrial areas had not been invaded so they were not damaged.
• Treaty of Versailles was psychologically damaging more than it actually crippled the economy.
• Anti-Semitism present throughout Europe.
• Elected president, Chancellor relied on the Reichstag for support.
• Women could vote too.

• 1923

• French invaded Ruhr
• Government printed money and caused hyperinflation.
• The Munich Putsch was an indication of the weak situation in Germany
• Hitler learnt from the Putsch
• The Rentenmark stabilised the currency.
• Finance minister Luther helped to stabilise the currency.
• Hitler failed in his Putsch, showed his inadequacies.

• 1924-1925

• Legacy of bitterness, middle-classes was very badly affected by inflation.
• Treaty of Versailles remained
• Loans brought in
• Foreign policy effective
• Wanted to revise eastern borders
• Governments were short lived
• No more coups or assassinations
• French troops left the Ruhr
• Germany was respected abroad
• Economic collapse in 1929 was negative
• Germany was not well governed. The Weimar republic could not survive and did not.

Was there a social revolution in Nazi Germany?

• Social revolution involves fundamental social change. Class reversal. Change in ownership of property.
• Only 12 years of what was supposed to be a 1000 year Reich, whatever Hitler had planned was not likely to have been complete in the time he ruled Germany.
• There were only 6 years of peace, so it is difficult to judge whether there was social change.
• He wanted to make a 1000-year Reich.
• The elites of Nazi Germany could be from the Arian ‘stock’. Hitler wanted a race of super men.
• Hitler wanted tall men, blond hair, blue eyes, and strong men.
• Hitler was changing the social order, women were second-class citizens.
• Over time this would become even more noticeable.
• Generals were respected
• The Jews were also being persecuted in German society and being removed.
• The mentally handicapped were bring eradicated in 1936, called euthanasia.
• Hitler wanted to modernise things, such as cities, he had plans for Berlin, which were never completed.
• He developed new agricultural techniques
• He used new technologies and invested in research
• Youth programmes were developed to change he social order
• Talented people could prosper under the third Reich, businesses like Volkswagen, IGB faben.
• Hitler wanted to achieve these things, but first he had to win the war.
• His social revolution was not to be started until he had won the war.
• Hitler’s main aim in his party programme was to create a utopian society.

What actually happened?

• Hitler could have been said to be a front man for a Nazi aim to keep society as it was
• The storm troopers were not put into high positions in society
• Hitler put the old generals in high positions, 11 of the 16 field marshals had been in position in 1931
• The army didn’t change. They didn’t have to give the Hitler salute unlike everyone else.
• There wasn’t a fundamental change in property ownership during the Nazi regime.
• Business and industry was not affected, he didn’t nationalise the businesses
• The four-year plan only worked as a business incentive scheme.
• Hitler did not change agricultural order; he enacted the hereditary farm act, which only benefited the landowners.
• He wanted to restore family values.
• He gave loans to people when they got married which could be extinguished if you had more than four children.
• There was no change in families
• Hitler youth was unpopular among children and the kids kept the friends they had outside of the Hitler youth.
• Women had to be subservient, they were taught to look after the house and children.
• Strikes were banned
• Holiday camps for workers
• Cultural changes were cosmetic
• Control of people’s minds, authoritarian
• Books were burnt, students in Berlin were the first to do these burnings
• All novels and films were written under Nazi controls
• Parades were very expensive
• Most people just did what they were told, but didn’t really agree with what was being taught.
• The SS was drawn from the rich aristocracy, not from established Nazi party members.
• British people had better health than Germans.
• Alcoholism was higher in Germany and so was smoking
• The people of Dusseldorf had poor dental hygiene; only 7% of them owned a toothbrush.
• There wasn’t a social revolution. No change in property ownership, family became conservative
• Racial policy was revolutionised
• No there wasn’t social revolution in Germany unless you asked ‘what if?’

Using source material

• Images

• Why was the source produced
• When was it made, context
• Who was it addressed to, specifically and why
• Relate images to what they mean and why
• The significance of what is shown
• What can be learnt from this

• Written

• If source was originally spoken then look at the effects this would have had
• Speech, what does it say, content
• Context, when, where
• Audience, who was there, who else would hear the speech
• Dramatic pauses in speech
• Sentence length
• Emphasis on key words
• How did the audience react to the situation
• Why was it made
• Significance of the speech
• Who voted the source
• What can be learnt from the source

Nazi racial policy

• Organised and carried out mass murder
• How can people have done this?
• Germany is a civilised society with highly intelligent people
• Where does the blame lie
• Goldhagen ‘all Germans are bad Germans’
• No evidence for his argument that everyone in Germany had been anti-Semitic for centuries
• Kershaw, suggests public opinion was very grey
• One must ask specific questions:
• Notion of totalitarianism to describe Nazi Germany is not realistic.
• Polycratic model is one of the third Reich being very chaotic and led by many different people.
• Hitler’s role is as a final decision maker
• Hitler biography by Kershaw avoids these models
• Who becomes an outcast in the society in Germany
• 1-2 April 1933: Boycott of Jewish shops
• 7 April 1933: ‘Law for the restitution of the professional civil service’, kicking out the Jews and communists.
• Sterilisation of people with hereditary illnesses
• 1935: anti-Semitic activism, Nuremberg laws
• Laws drafted on the back of a menu at 2 o’clock in a restaurant: result was very vague laws
• Couldn’t decide who was a Jew, what makes a Jew?
• Olympics held in 1936 in Germany, Berlin was ‘cleaned up’ for the outside world, all the anti-Semitic behaviour was hidden from visitors.
• Hitler didn’t want negative foreign opinion during peace time
• November 1938 Kristallnacht
• Stigmatisation against Jews, but people were being pressured to leave. No genocide yet.
• 1939-41: resettlement plans for Jews. They were poorly treated on purpose to increase the number of Jews who died ‘naturally’.
• Polish elites killed in mass shootings
• The euthanasia programme
• 1941, Russia was invaded on the 22nd of July
• Hitler is loosing it – mood swings, ageing rapidly
• Racial war against sub-humans in the east
• 23 June; Einsatzgruppen went into Russia, atrocities all over Russia
• August 1941, rapid escalation of number involved in both those doing the killing and those being killed
• Hitler never gave a written order to start the holocaust
• 3 September; test of Zyklon B gas
• Mass shootings were difficult and inefficient. Soldiers had to be made drunk to start killing and when they went home they would tell people about the killings
• Gassings using car exhausts at Chelmino
• Germans start to make techniques more efficient and professional
• Start using gas chambers disguised as showers
• Hitler’s role was central, he set the tone
• It was not totalitarian, people worked to please Hitler, didn’t need to be given orders
• How were the people who carried it out so radicalised