Lesson 7c - How did Hitler gain support from policies and what did he aim to achieve?
The last two lessons on the rise to power and consolidation of power of Hitler have concentrated on the the use of formal and informal social control (coercion and persuation). This lesson shifts the focus to look at the things Hitler did that were designed to win the support of the German people, that is their consent. In realty though coercion, persuasion and consent are present at all times in the relationship between the state and the individual. The first film below should remind you of the coercion, persuasion and consent model. The other two films try to explain the two different forms of consent that operate: explicit and implicit. As we will see later, the more totalitarian a state is, the more important is the expected level of explicit consent.
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On coming to power, Hitler like Mussolini had broad appeal. Nazism had its believers; it was an untested ideology that enjoyed the attraction of the new and modern. On the radical left, National socialism could be attractive with its promises to reform capitalism in the interest of the working classes. It is worth remembering that the Nazi Party had begun as the German Workers Party. The Great Depression of the 1930s had a devastating impact on the German economy and Hitler promised jobs and a national revival and as you will see from the policies outlined below, he began to deliver. Massive public works projects (as we saw earlier with Roosevelt's New Deal) stimulated the economy as did his aggresive foreign policy which along with restoring national pride, also required massive conscription and rearmament. With the Communists in prison or in exile, the civll unrest which had characterised the late Weimar years was a thing of the past. The SA had served their purpose and could now be disposed. As in Italy, the radical left-wing influence in National Socialism had very shallow roots that were dealt a death blow with the Night of Long Knives.
Much more important was the Nazi appeal to the sentiments of traditional conservative right. Hitler like Mussolini also accommodated and co-opted important influences like the Catholic church and big business. The revival of German industry, which appealed to big business leaders who saw an opportunity for improved economic conditions.
Much more important was the Nazi appeal to the sentiments of traditional conservative right. Hitler like Mussolini also accommodated and co-opted important influences like the Catholic church and big business. The revival of German industry, which appealed to big business leaders who saw an opportunity for improved economic conditions.
The arrest of communists and socialists, the banning of left wing parties and the replacement of independent trade unions with the German Labor Front (DAF), was welcomed by many business leaders as it eliminated the possibility of strikes and labor unrest, providing greater stability to their operations.The arms industry and other sectors related to war production experienced significant growth. This benefited big businesses involved in manufacturing arms, vehicles, and other war-related products. The public works schemes provided lucrative contracts and opportunities for businesses
Along with all the implicit consent, HItler also used elections to shore up his support through explicit consent. The November 1933 and 1936 elections, had only Nazis and 'Guests of Nazis' on the ballot papers. |
Economic Policies
Hitler's economic policies were initially led by Hjalmar Schacht from 1933 to 1937. Hitler benefitted from both the global economic upturn and the impact of policies introduced by his Weimer predecessors. There were two key goals to the economic policies. The first was to reduce unemployment and the second was to prepare for war. The Nazi state had significant control over key industries and resources, but unlike in Russia private enterprise was not entirely eliminated, and many businesses were allowed to operate under strict government regulation.
Hitler's economic policies were initially led by Hjalmar Schacht from 1933 to 1937. Hitler benefitted from both the global economic upturn and the impact of policies introduced by his Weimer predecessors. There were two key goals to the economic policies. The first was to reduce unemployment and the second was to prepare for war. The Nazi state had significant control over key industries and resources, but unlike in Russia private enterprise was not entirely eliminated, and many businesses were allowed to operate under strict government regulation.
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The Reich Labour Service (RAD) compelled unemployed people to work on public works projects and conservation programmes that imposed manual labour even when machinery was available such as building the Autobahn or grandiose new projects such as the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. The Nazis abolished independent labor unions and replaced them with the German Labor Front (DAF), which was under Nazi control. This made industrial action illegal. The government implemented various forms of price and wage controls to combat inflation and maintain economic stability. These controls often favored business interests and helped maintain the support of key economic players.
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Unemployment had been at six million when the Nazis came to power and, by 1936, it had fallen to 1.6 million. By 1939, Germany was enjoying almost full employment. But underlying this economic innovation was the coercive power of the increasingly totalitarian state, transforming Germany in accordance with Hitler’s Weltanschauung. Women were gradually forced out of the workplace and Jewish shops and businesses were closed down.
One of the most significant economic policies was the massive expansion of the German military and arms production. This not only helped reduce unemployment but also laid the groundwork for World War II. From March 1935, conscription to the army helped to reduce unemployment further. Much of this was funded by elaborate and legally questionable deficit financing, most notably through the popular ‘Mefo Bills’, which were government credit notes that guaranteed interest for the investor. The Four-Year Plan, initiated by Hermann Göring in 1936, aimed to prepare the German economy for total war by prioritizing industries related to rearmament. As in Italy, Nazis sought to make Germany economically self-sufficient or autarkic to reduce dependence on imports, which they believed made Germany vulnerable to international economic pressures. In the end Germany was not ready for total war before 1942. The initial success of blizkrieg in 1940 and the expropriation of the resources and forced labour of the occupied regions hid economic weaknesses. For example, Nazi ideology resisted the mobilisation of women in the labour force for as long as was possible. Only under the economic leadership of Albert Speer after 1942 did Germany successfully mobilise for total war.
One of the most significant economic policies was the massive expansion of the German military and arms production. This not only helped reduce unemployment but also laid the groundwork for World War II. From March 1935, conscription to the army helped to reduce unemployment further. Much of this was funded by elaborate and legally questionable deficit financing, most notably through the popular ‘Mefo Bills’, which were government credit notes that guaranteed interest for the investor. The Four-Year Plan, initiated by Hermann Göring in 1936, aimed to prepare the German economy for total war by prioritizing industries related to rearmament. As in Italy, Nazis sought to make Germany economically self-sufficient or autarkic to reduce dependence on imports, which they believed made Germany vulnerable to international economic pressures. In the end Germany was not ready for total war before 1942. The initial success of blizkrieg in 1940 and the expropriation of the resources and forced labour of the occupied regions hid economic weaknesses. For example, Nazi ideology resisted the mobilisation of women in the labour force for as long as was possible. Only under the economic leadership of Albert Speer after 1942 did Germany successfully mobilise for total war.
Social Policies
As with political and economic policy, Nazi social policies were concerned with furthering the ideological goals of creating a Volksgemeinschaft (people's community), and also with the more pragmatic concern of generating popular support for the regime.
As with political and economic policy, Nazi social policies were concerned with furthering the ideological goals of creating a Volksgemeinschaft (people's community), and also with the more pragmatic concern of generating popular support for the regime.
(i) Women and families
The Nazi project of creating a new Volksgemeinschaft, focused on undoing the ‘damage’ of the Weimar years which had seen women enjoy a significant degree of political and social liberation. As in Mussolini's Italy, a woman's role in society was to be focused on the three Ks: Kinder, Küche, Kirche (Children, Kitchen, Church). This was to be achieved with a mixture of coercion, persuasion and by generating consent.
The Nazi project of creating a new Volksgemeinschaft, focused on undoing the ‘damage’ of the Weimar years which had seen women enjoy a significant degree of political and social liberation. As in Mussolini's Italy, a woman's role in society was to be focused on the three Ks: Kinder, Küche, Kirche (Children, Kitchen, Church). This was to be achieved with a mixture of coercion, persuasion and by generating consent.
In 1933, 15 percent of female teachers lost their jobs and 19 000 female civil servants were sacked. Quotas were set so that only 10 percent of university places were given to women. There was a resulting decline in female employment from 37 per cent to 31 per cent between 1933 and 1937. Family planning clinics were closed, contraception was almost impossible to find and abortion was made illegal in 1933. The Nazi attempt to shape a national Weltanschauung in its own image through the control of arts, media and education. The physical ideal was the ‘Aryan’ archetype: blonde, beautiful, tall, slim and strong. Images showed ‘racially pure’ women, healthy for childbearing, usually in a domestic setting, surrounded by children. Finally, women were rewarded for consenting to Nazi ideals. The ‘Law for the Reduction of Unemployment’ of June 1933 encouraged women to leave work on marriage, with the support of loans that provided just over half an average year's earnings. Further incentives for women to have large families included the Cross of Honour of the German Mother (1938) which awarded a bronze medal for having four children, silver for six and gold for eight or more. Family allowances of 100 Reichsmark for each child were also awarded and rail fares and school expenses were subsidised. In 1935, the Lebensborn (Spring of Life) project encouraged unmarried women with a good racial profile to become pregnant, with SS men as the fathers.
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(ii) The Church, racism and anti-Semitism
The Nazi relationship with the dominant Christian churches in the 1930s was a complex one. Both the Catholic and Protestant leaderships generally welcomed the Nazis' rejection of Weimar values. The secular, liberal permissiveness of Weimar culture had threatened traditional Christian values to the core. Nazi opposition to atheistic Marxism, Hitler’s socially conservative Weltanschauung and pervasive anti-semitism also had wide appeal in Christian circles. From the Nazi perspective, the church had to be handled carefully. Potentially, as a rival source of people’s loyalty, the church could be a dangerous enemy. Hitler signed a Concordat (agreement) with the Catholic Church in July 1933. The Nazis attempted a similar policy of co-optation with the Protestant Church. A Reich bishop was appointed and ‘German Christians’ were appointed to key positions in the church.
There were those in the Nazi Party ‘Blut und Boden' (Blood and Soil) section with leading figures such as Heinrich Himmler and Alfred Rosenberg who supported the rival pagan ‘German Faith Movement’, which had some influence. The pagans gained official recognition, their fervent promotion of the Hitler cult was welcome and even some Christian traditions – carol singing and nativity plays – were banned. But it was always a small sect and Hitler never fully supported it.
The Nazi relationship with the dominant Christian churches in the 1930s was a complex one. Both the Catholic and Protestant leaderships generally welcomed the Nazis' rejection of Weimar values. The secular, liberal permissiveness of Weimar culture had threatened traditional Christian values to the core. Nazi opposition to atheistic Marxism, Hitler’s socially conservative Weltanschauung and pervasive anti-semitism also had wide appeal in Christian circles. From the Nazi perspective, the church had to be handled carefully. Potentially, as a rival source of people’s loyalty, the church could be a dangerous enemy. Hitler signed a Concordat (agreement) with the Catholic Church in July 1933. The Nazis attempted a similar policy of co-optation with the Protestant Church. A Reich bishop was appointed and ‘German Christians’ were appointed to key positions in the church.
There were those in the Nazi Party ‘Blut und Boden' (Blood and Soil) section with leading figures such as Heinrich Himmler and Alfred Rosenberg who supported the rival pagan ‘German Faith Movement’, which had some influence. The pagans gained official recognition, their fervent promotion of the Hitler cult was welcome and even some Christian traditions – carol singing and nativity plays – were banned. But it was always a small sect and Hitler never fully supported it.
The defining characteristic of Nazism as an authoritarian regime was its brutal treatment of minorities and, in particular, its systematic persecution of the Jews. In many ways this was a simple extension of the ideas of social Darwinism that we saw underpinning European nationalism and imperialism in the late 19th century. The Nazi concept of Volksgemeinschaft, rejected the liberal concept of universal human rights. For the Nazis, not all humans were equally worthy, useful or deserving Volksgenossen (social compatriots) and, consequently, had to be treated differently. Nazi concepts of racial degeneracy and social deviance (behaviour that violated social norms) were rooted in a similar pseudoscientific explanations that ultimately reduced everything to the importance of ‘blood’ . They believed that, because of their hereditary bloodline, Germans were the ‘Aryan’ Herrenvolk (master race), as were other Germanic peoples, including the English and Scandinavians. The French and northern Italians were considered to be Germanic. However, Slavs (including Poles, Serbs, and Russians) and Jews were described as Untermenschen ‘subhumans’, who were destined to be enslaved or eliminated by the Herrenvolk.
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Jews were the classic scapegoat minority. For the Nazis, the Jews, in secret alliance with the Marxists, were responsible for the ‘stab in the back’ of 1918 and brought about the hyperinflation crisis of 1923. Yet there were only approximately 525,000 Jewish people living in Germany in 1933, less than one percent of the population. The proportion of Jews in professional jobs was higher than the national average at that time (16.6 per cent of lawyers, 10.9 per cent of doctors and 8.6 per cent of dentists), a source of jealousy that helped fuel Nazi propaganda. Goebbels was relentless in portraying Jews as foreign and a threat. This was reinforced in publications produced for children such as Der Gifipilz (The Poisonous Mushroom, 1938), which portrayed Jews as the human equivalent of a poisonous fungus.
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Antisemitic laws and actions were gradual but grew in their significance. Two important examples were the 1935 Nuremburg Laws which deprived German Jews of citizenship and forbade marriage or sexual relations between Jews and German citizens, and in the November 1938 attack on synagogues and Jewish property, Kristallnacht, after which Jews are forbidden from attending cinema and concerts and all Jewish-run businesses were closed.
(iii) Education and indoctrination
The most effective way to build support for an authoritarian regime is not through coercion, but through gradually instilling the values of the regime in the young. Youth policies in Nazi Germany, as in other authoritarian states, were designed to produce adults who felt the Nazi Weltanschauung was a normal, ‘common sense’ way of seeing the world. In schools the power of head teachers was strengthened, and traditional hierarchies were reinforced. Boys and girls received different curricula and teachers were forced to be members of the Nazi Teachers’ Association. In the classrooms of Nazi Germany, changes were made to traditional subjects. For example, German lessons emphasised national and folk traditions and even sciences (especially biology) and maths were designed to reinforce Nazi ideology. New subjects including racial sciences entered the curriculum and certain subjects like sports and physical activity were given greater curriculum time. Girls’ educational opportunities decreased. Their curriculum was limited to home-making subjects and by 1939 very few women were going on to university.
The most effective way to build support for an authoritarian regime is not through coercion, but through gradually instilling the values of the regime in the young. Youth policies in Nazi Germany, as in other authoritarian states, were designed to produce adults who felt the Nazi Weltanschauung was a normal, ‘common sense’ way of seeing the world. In schools the power of head teachers was strengthened, and traditional hierarchies were reinforced. Boys and girls received different curricula and teachers were forced to be members of the Nazi Teachers’ Association. In the classrooms of Nazi Germany, changes were made to traditional subjects. For example, German lessons emphasised national and folk traditions and even sciences (especially biology) and maths were designed to reinforce Nazi ideology. New subjects including racial sciences entered the curriculum and certain subjects like sports and physical activity were given greater curriculum time. Girls’ educational opportunities decreased. Their curriculum was limited to home-making subjects and by 1939 very few women were going on to university.
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In the 1920s, millions of young Germans had been members of religious, political or sporting groups, but under the Nazis they were brought into one national organisation, which aimed to educate them 'physically, intellectually and morally in the spirit of National Socialism to serve the nation and the community'. There was an impressive admission ceremony, during which the new recruit had to swear an oath of loyalty to the Führer and was then proclaimed a 'bearer of German spirit and German honour'. While membership did not become compulsory until the late 1930s, large numbers of young people became enthusiastic members. In 1932 the Hitler Youth had about 100,000 members, by 1939 about 8 million German youths were part of the organisation, 90 per cent of the population. Rifle practice, hiking and endurance activities, as well as team building typified the militaristic style.
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Cultural Policies
Hitler's state is to be considered a totalitarian regime because the cultural ambitions of the state extended beyond the ‘social depoliticization’ of censorship and propaganda to include state control of media and arts to promote a new sense of social being. Nazi cultural policy was an extension of the state propaganda machine discussed in the last lesson. The Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda had seven departments to oversee propaganda and censorship. (Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda, RMVP). Their role was to prevent the production, publication and dissemination of art that the regime did not value, and to invest resources, time and effort to the art that it did. Hitler aimed to promote a narrow conception of "Aryan" culture, which glorified Germanic traditions, history, and achievements. Nazi cultural policies sought to celebrate and elevate German culture as superior to all others, while denigrating and censoring art, literature, and music deemed "degenerate" or incompatible with Nazi ideology.
Central to the Nazi Weltanschauung was a belief that cosmopolitan, ‘Jewish’, Weimar culture had been a corrupting influence of the German national psyche and must be removed. Censorship was therefore a central strategy of Nazi artistic policy. The list of intellectuals, especially Jews, who left Nazi Germany is very long and includes the physicist Albert Einstein, the author Thomas Mann and the philosopher Theodor W. Adorno. Books were banned, art was removed from galleries and music concerts featuring Jewish composers including Mahler and Mendelssohn were denied performance licences. The single most famous example of the war on the Weimar avant-garde was the Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) Exhibition in Munich in 1937. The exhibition presented 650 works of art, that according to the Nazis ‘insult German feeling, or destroy or confuse natural form or simply reveal an absence of adequate manual and artistic skill’, all of which had been confiscated from German museums.
Even more significant was the role of the DAF, that through the Strength Through Joy (KdF) organisation used its control of the arts to democratise culture that was traditionally the preserve of the elite. These included subsidised holidays (including the world’s first package holidays at purpose built resorts) operatic and orchestral performances and free physical education and gymnastics training. According to the official statistics in 1934, 2.3 million people took KdF holidays and by 1938, this figure had risen to 10.3 million. One of the most famous KdF projects was the ‘people's car,’ the Volkswagen, a project initiated by Hitler's with the help of Ferdinand Porsche. Artistic forms with high production costs such as touring classical ballet and orchestras could benefit from significant state subsidies, because of the propaganda role such prestigious cultural organisations might attract. The KdF had its own ninety-piece symphony orchestra which continually toured the country and in 1938 over two and a half million people attended its concerts. One observer pointed out that the KdF "made available at bargain rates tickets to the theatre, the opera and concerts, thus making available more highbrow entertainment to the labouring man." http://spartacus-educational.com/GERjoy.html
In Germany, as in Italy, there were attempts to develop a totalitarian aesthetic, through a confused combination of modernist concrete brutalism and attempts to revive classical models of Greece and Rome. Cultural policy was of central importance to Hitler. Hitler had been an artist and his architectural plans for the rebuilding of Germany obsessed him. His taste in visual arts and architecture was conservative and classical; the Nazi patronage of the sculptor Arno Breker typified this. Breker designed two massive male nudes to be placed for the Reich Chancellery. Nazi architecture was remarkably similar to that of other authoritarian regimes. The overwhelming size and purposefully imposing style was intended to inspire awe and fear in equal measure. The weakness of the individual against the power of the authoritarian state was the only message that mattered. Being able to divert almost limitless funds to artistic and cultural projects enables authoritarian states to produce artefacts that would not be possible where there are normal commercial limits. Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will was a massive logistical exercise, well beyond the possibilities of any commercial studio at that time. Both the form and content of her work exemplified the celebration of authoritarianism. But it also made it possible for her to pioneer cinematographic techniques that are still admired and continue to influence filmmaking, including George Lucas’ Star Wars.
Hitler's state is to be considered a totalitarian regime because the cultural ambitions of the state extended beyond the ‘social depoliticization’ of censorship and propaganda to include state control of media and arts to promote a new sense of social being. Nazi cultural policy was an extension of the state propaganda machine discussed in the last lesson. The Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda had seven departments to oversee propaganda and censorship. (Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda, RMVP). Their role was to prevent the production, publication and dissemination of art that the regime did not value, and to invest resources, time and effort to the art that it did. Hitler aimed to promote a narrow conception of "Aryan" culture, which glorified Germanic traditions, history, and achievements. Nazi cultural policies sought to celebrate and elevate German culture as superior to all others, while denigrating and censoring art, literature, and music deemed "degenerate" or incompatible with Nazi ideology.
Central to the Nazi Weltanschauung was a belief that cosmopolitan, ‘Jewish’, Weimar culture had been a corrupting influence of the German national psyche and must be removed. Censorship was therefore a central strategy of Nazi artistic policy. The list of intellectuals, especially Jews, who left Nazi Germany is very long and includes the physicist Albert Einstein, the author Thomas Mann and the philosopher Theodor W. Adorno. Books were banned, art was removed from galleries and music concerts featuring Jewish composers including Mahler and Mendelssohn were denied performance licences. The single most famous example of the war on the Weimar avant-garde was the Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) Exhibition in Munich in 1937. The exhibition presented 650 works of art, that according to the Nazis ‘insult German feeling, or destroy or confuse natural form or simply reveal an absence of adequate manual and artistic skill’, all of which had been confiscated from German museums.
Even more significant was the role of the DAF, that through the Strength Through Joy (KdF) organisation used its control of the arts to democratise culture that was traditionally the preserve of the elite. These included subsidised holidays (including the world’s first package holidays at purpose built resorts) operatic and orchestral performances and free physical education and gymnastics training. According to the official statistics in 1934, 2.3 million people took KdF holidays and by 1938, this figure had risen to 10.3 million. One of the most famous KdF projects was the ‘people's car,’ the Volkswagen, a project initiated by Hitler's with the help of Ferdinand Porsche. Artistic forms with high production costs such as touring classical ballet and orchestras could benefit from significant state subsidies, because of the propaganda role such prestigious cultural organisations might attract. The KdF had its own ninety-piece symphony orchestra which continually toured the country and in 1938 over two and a half million people attended its concerts. One observer pointed out that the KdF "made available at bargain rates tickets to the theatre, the opera and concerts, thus making available more highbrow entertainment to the labouring man." http://spartacus-educational.com/GERjoy.html
In Germany, as in Italy, there were attempts to develop a totalitarian aesthetic, through a confused combination of modernist concrete brutalism and attempts to revive classical models of Greece and Rome. Cultural policy was of central importance to Hitler. Hitler had been an artist and his architectural plans for the rebuilding of Germany obsessed him. His taste in visual arts and architecture was conservative and classical; the Nazi patronage of the sculptor Arno Breker typified this. Breker designed two massive male nudes to be placed for the Reich Chancellery. Nazi architecture was remarkably similar to that of other authoritarian regimes. The overwhelming size and purposefully imposing style was intended to inspire awe and fear in equal measure. The weakness of the individual against the power of the authoritarian state was the only message that mattered. Being able to divert almost limitless funds to artistic and cultural projects enables authoritarian states to produce artefacts that would not be possible where there are normal commercial limits. Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will was a massive logistical exercise, well beyond the possibilities of any commercial studio at that time. Both the form and content of her work exemplified the celebration of authoritarianism. But it also made it possible for her to pioneer cinematographic techniques that are still admired and continue to influence filmmaking, including George Lucas’ Star Wars.
Foreign Policies
A detailed examination of Hitler's foreign policy is the subject of a later unit of study in Matu 11. Here we will just provide an overview with particular focus on the impact on Germany itself and Hitler's ability to rule. There is little doubt that the success of Nazi foreign policy after 1933 did much to consolidate Nazi rule and generate genuine popular support for the regime and this peaked with the success of the military campaign in 1940. It is also certain that the regime could only be brought to an end with the defeat of Germany and the processs of de-Nazification which began in 1945. The Treaty of the Versailles influenced much of Germany policy in the years leading up to the rise of Hitler. However, Hitler made the destruction of the treaty one of his main foreign policy aims. |
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Many German people harboured similar aspirations, (see film) so it is not surprising that these policies were popular. The Nazis also sought a ‘Greater Germany’ for all ethnic Germans in an enlarged state through the policy of Lebensraum.
Hitler’s first major actions on the international stage were to withdraw from the Disarmament Conference and take Germany out of the League of Nations. In July 1934 Hitler suffered a setback with the failed Nazi coup in Austria. One of the reasons for the failure of the coup was that Mussolini was at this point suspicious of Hitler and his plans, and moved Italian troops to the border of Italy and Austria. Hitler could not risk a military confrontation with Italy, and had to back down. On 16 March 1935, Hitler announced the reintroduction of conscription, in order to enlarge the army. This reduced unemployment as well as gaining support from conservative groups and nationalists. Tied to this policy was the decision of rearming and the concept of autarky.
1936 marks a turning point in the history of Nazi foreign policy. Exploiting the distraction of the Mussolini's actions in Abysinnia, Germany remilitarized the Rhineland. The international condemnation of both Hitler and Mussolini, combined with the ineffective response from the League of Nations led Italy and Germany into closer cooperation. This was most obviously apparent in their joint support for Franco's anti-democratic forces in the Spanish Civil War. Germany then signed the Anti-Comintern (Anti-Communist) Pact, initially with Japan, (November 1936) and then also with Italy (January 1937).
With the support of Italy guaranteed Hitler now proceded to fulfil a series of long term goals with the annexation of Austria and the Sudentenland in Austria. In March 1939 he took a major step to war with annexation of the rest of Czechoslovakia and after securing the agreement of the USSR in August 1939, Germnay began the Second World War by invading Poland in September 1939.
Initially there was some concerns among the German citizens about the invasion of Poland, which started World War II. However, Nazi propaganda assured the people of the value of these objectives. The Nazis were confident that with each success in small wars, their objectives would continue to gain popularity and they would maintain power. The Blitzkrieg strategy certainly was effective: within one month, with minimal loss of German soldiers, Poland was defeated and annexed. With the victory over France in the summer of 1940 Hitler's popularity was at an all time high. He had a achieved in a few months and with minimal cost what the German empire had failed to achieve in World War One.
The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 marked the final turning point and the start of gradual decline of Nazi Power. The eastern front saw some of the largest battles with the highest casualty rates. In December the USA joined the war against Germany which could not match the industrial war production of the Allies. In July 1943, the Italian Grand Fascist Council knew the war was lost and voted to dismiss Mussolini. Hitler's increasingly erratic interventions in war policy resulted in a series of signifiacnt strategic errors. The Nazis were pushed back in the East and in June 1944 a second front was opened up on the Normandy beaches. Germany fought on to the bitter end, a clear indication of how effective the control that Hitler and the Nazis had exerted. Only the death of Hitler on April 30 1945, just two days after the ignominious mob killing of Mussolini, finally brought the war to an end.
1936 marks a turning point in the history of Nazi foreign policy. Exploiting the distraction of the Mussolini's actions in Abysinnia, Germany remilitarized the Rhineland. The international condemnation of both Hitler and Mussolini, combined with the ineffective response from the League of Nations led Italy and Germany into closer cooperation. This was most obviously apparent in their joint support for Franco's anti-democratic forces in the Spanish Civil War. Germany then signed the Anti-Comintern (Anti-Communist) Pact, initially with Japan, (November 1936) and then also with Italy (January 1937).
With the support of Italy guaranteed Hitler now proceded to fulfil a series of long term goals with the annexation of Austria and the Sudentenland in Austria. In March 1939 he took a major step to war with annexation of the rest of Czechoslovakia and after securing the agreement of the USSR in August 1939, Germnay began the Second World War by invading Poland in September 1939.
Initially there was some concerns among the German citizens about the invasion of Poland, which started World War II. However, Nazi propaganda assured the people of the value of these objectives. The Nazis were confident that with each success in small wars, their objectives would continue to gain popularity and they would maintain power. The Blitzkrieg strategy certainly was effective: within one month, with minimal loss of German soldiers, Poland was defeated and annexed. With the victory over France in the summer of 1940 Hitler's popularity was at an all time high. He had a achieved in a few months and with minimal cost what the German empire had failed to achieve in World War One.
The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 marked the final turning point and the start of gradual decline of Nazi Power. The eastern front saw some of the largest battles with the highest casualty rates. In December the USA joined the war against Germany which could not match the industrial war production of the Allies. In July 1943, the Italian Grand Fascist Council knew the war was lost and voted to dismiss Mussolini. Hitler's increasingly erratic interventions in war policy resulted in a series of signifiacnt strategic errors. The Nazis were pushed back in the East and in June 1944 a second front was opened up on the Normandy beaches. Germany fought on to the bitter end, a clear indication of how effective the control that Hitler and the Nazis had exerted. Only the death of Hitler on April 30 1945, just two days after the ignominious mob killing of Mussolini, finally brought the war to an end.
Activity
The activity for this lesson will be a class based lecture. Make sure to put your notes - supplemented from here if necessary - in your OneNote.
The activity for this lesson will be a class based lecture. Make sure to put your notes - supplemented from here if necessary - in your OneNote.
Extension and extras (essential for IB students.)
My films below provide you with a generic, conceptual overview of how consent can be manufactured in authoritarian states. My pages on the IB section of the site also provide you with more details.
My films below provide you with a generic, conceptual overview of how consent can be manufactured in authoritarian states. My pages on the IB section of the site also provide you with more details.
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