MWH 4.A

Unit IV Part A: Hitler and the Nazis

Hitler's Early Life

o Born in Austria 1889 Adolf Hitler failed

out of school and then moved to Vienna, where he failed as an Artist.

o Hitler then develops his ideals of

racism, specifically anti-Semitism: hostility towards Jews.

o Following his four-year service for

Germany in WWI, Hitler remains in Germany, joining the German Worker’s Party in 1919

The Nazi Goal: The Aryan Race

Birth of the Nazi Party

Nazi Women

o Hitler’s larger goal was he creation

of an Aryan racial state

 A cross between the ancient

Greeks and Romans with the Germans and Scandinavians.

o The Germans thought the they

were true decedents and leaders of the Aryans and would create an empire.

o By the summer of 1921 Hitler had total control of

the party

o It was renamed the National German Socialist

Worker’s Party or Nazi for short.

o Within 2 years, the party grew to 55,000 with a

15,000-strong militia known as Storm Troops, SA, or Brownshirts.

o Hitler tries to stage an armed revolt in 1923, and

was quickly crushed.

 Sent to prison, Hitler writes Mein Kampf, or

my struggle.

 Stresses, anticommunism, anti-Semitism,

Social Darwinism, and the superiority of the Germans as a race.

o Women were a key piece to the Aryan

plan, they needed to bear children.

o Women were discouraged and banned

from any occupations that would interfere with childbearing.

o The slogan that best sums the position

of women in Nazi society would be “Get a hold of pots and pans and broom and you’ll sooner find a groom!”

Anti-Semitic Policies

State of Terror

Rise of the Nazis

o At the annual Nuremberg Rally in 1935 the Nazi Party

introduced the “Nuremberg Laws”

 Anyone who as at least one Jewish grandparent is

considered a Jew.

 All Jews are stripped of German citizenship.

 Marriage between Jews was forbidden.

 Jews are forced to wear a yellow Star of David and carry

identification cards

 Eventually 30,000 men are sent to concentration camps

 Jews are soon banned from public transportation, schools,

hospitals.

 Eventually the government begins to encourage Jews to

simply leave Germany.

o Realizing that the Nazis need to attain power

legally, Hitler, promising nationalism, militarism, and a fix for the economic problems, expands the party to 800,000 by 1931, the largest in German Parliament.

o President Hindenburg soon allows Hitler to

become chancellor and make a new government.

 Hitler takes total control with the “Enabling

-Act” which allows a government to ignore the constitution while it passes laws to deal with the countries problems.

o The SS were an important

instrument for Hitler to maintain control.

o They were based on two

principles

 Terror: repression, murder,

secret police, concentration camps.

 Ideology: the idea that

Germany must be successful, and the Aryan race furthered.

The Nazi State

o Soon the government purges all civil

services of democratic processes and Jews, whom they blame for all of Europe’s economic problems.

o Prison camps, called Concentration

Camps, are set up for all who oppose the government

o All other political parties are

banned.

o When Hindenburg dies in 1934,

Hitler is named Fuhrer, or leader.