The Nazi Party was founded in 1919. For much of the 1920’s it was an insignificant party. Lead by Adolph Hitler, it had policies including racialist extreme, the destruction of the treaty at Versailles, Living space for Germany (particularly in the East), the end of a Weimar Republic and a Social Revolution.
In 1923, Hitler and his followers failed to take power by force and was imprisoned in Lansbach Castle, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle) Setting out his main ideas. In the 1928 Election the Nazi’s performed very poorly polling only 2.6% of the vote. However, five years later Hitler was Chancellor as Germany. The reasons are for as follows:
- Economic Collapse
- Nazi Organisation and Tactics
- Role of Establishment
The Nazi Party wanted a race for dominance. Many great empires had risen and fallen and now Hitler made a bid fro dominance by exploiting lesser races along the way such as the Jews. The first step in the plan was to create the well known living space (Lebensraum) and production of raw materials throughout Europe. Germany needed one key stronghold of world industrialism – Soviet Russia. To achieve this, all Germany had to be united under the banner of a “Greater Germany”. Therefore there would hold an extremely strong position in military power. As the facts suggests in Hitler’s speech in 1943 quote: “Since the reintroduction of conscription, our armaments (military units) have swallowed fantastic sums which are still completely uncovered…”
As A.P.Adamthwaite says in his book The making of the Second World War (1979) “The Hossbach memorandum confirms the continuity of Hitler’s thinking: the primacy of force in world politics, conquest for living space in the east, anti-Bolshevism, hostility to France. Hitler’s warlike intentions were now explicit.”
This vision of Germany’s future (Lebensraum) and direction of German foreign politics are found in Hitler’s major writings and speeches. However, Hitler had to step carefully, while Germany was rebuilding its military strength.
Many historians such as David Taylor also argued that Hitler’s policies and the content of his Policies did not differ from those of preceding German governments and had the solid support of most Germans. There is also evidence and facts in the video series The World at War that the western governments of Britain and the US actually supported Hitler in this new fascism resume as Taylor quite rightly points out in Twentieth Century Germany – The Nazi Years according to Taylor there are only to options for a statesmen like Hitler – Full opposition from the very beginning or no opposition at all.
As Taylor points out Hitler did have the solid support of the leaders in German industry, army and public service and the backing of the majority of German people (middle class) as show in The World at War. Even though this Nazi racialism was risky the people still burnt Jewish books and Socialists were locked up in concentration camps.
In conclusion, the Second World War came about almost by accident. As A.J.P.Taylor says:
“Hitler never planned to get his end not by war – merely by threatening war, raising the tensions which he thought would throw his enemies into disarray”
Few people challenged Hitler from the beginning. Some politicians such as Winston Churchill, did have the foresight to demand a tough stand against the Hitler government but the mind of the people (particularly Britain) was peace (sounds like Iraq), not to mention the difficulties being to lead your country in a war against Germany. They also felt that the Germans were done in by the Versailles peace agreement and thought that one these appeasement policies had been settled, Germany would go back to ‘normal’ foreign policies. This was an extremely big mistake.
By 1937 Germany faced massive economic problems – a chronic shortage of labour and raw materials meant that woman had to re-enter the workforce. Germany also had serious payment problems with the rise of inflation. Hitler stressed there was only one way out – territorial expansion: “We have nothing to lose. We have everything to gain. Because of our restrictions, our economic situation is such… that we have no other choice, we must act.”
Fascism points at the whole block of democratic ideologies and rejects both there premises and there application/method. Fascism denies that numbers as such may be the determining factors in human society – it denies the right of numbers given to govern. Fascism is the only liberty worth having, the liberty of the state and the liberty within the state. This ideology of the Italians and Germans of the 1930’s clashed with those democratic governments (Britain, France etc.) which lead to the outbreak in WW2.
Hitler was the leader of the Nazi movement from 1919 to his death in 1945. He remains as one of the most discussed political philosopher of our time. With all of Hitler’s aggressive foreign policies being generally well supported from the important upper-class Germans at the time, Hitler and his Nazi run party had the main say in determining the course expansionist the war would take.
Bibliography:
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Collier, Martin and Pedley, Philip. Germany 1919-45. Great Britain: Heinemann, 2000
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Crozier, Andrew. The Causes of the Second World War. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997
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Tampke, Jűrgen. Twentieth Century Germany: The Weimar and Nazi Years. Melbourne: Nelson, 1994
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Bell, PMH. The Origins of the Second World War in Europe. New York: Longman, 1989
