Nazism's Effect on the German Society When the Adolf Hitler came to power as chancellor on 30th January 1933, he immediately starting using his position to make the changes that he had wanted to see implemented for over a decade. With Von Papen as Vice Chancellor and Gobbles and Goering as ministers, the Third Reich was able to bring massive political, social and economic change to the lives of German people. The Reichstag became a forum for Hitler to expound his views and policies with a total lack of criticism and under Article 48 of the German constitution, Hitler was allowed to rule by decree without the support of the Reichstag. Utilising this power, he saw to it that all other political parties were abolished and thus, democracy was destroyed and a highly centralised totalitarian state was established. In demolishing all other parties, Hitler also ensured the support or at least the acquiescence of the industrialists and the army leaders, who needed him as much and he needed them. Hitler, who was highly nationalistic, took this opportunity to assert his beliefs that the Germanic people - the Herrenvolk - were the master race and that they had to affirm their superiority over surrounding people. His believed in 'blut, volk and furhreprinzip' (blood, folk and leadership). He aimed to create the ultimate national community - the Volksgemeinschaft - based on the traditional values of the German people that were found in the farms and small towns of rural Germany, as he believed that growing up in the city represented corruption. The Volksgemeinschaft implied a classless society. Hitler aimed to create national solidarity... ... middle of paper ... ...re saying, the Nazi government also imposed excessive amounts of propaganda on to the German public. It became a key element in welding together the political attitudes of the nation. Goebbels, an extremely intelligent and determined Nazi, was the minister of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda. He saw to it that all methods of expression and communication were monitored with great care and that only pro-Nazi messages were successfully communicated. The press, radio, art, music and literature were all monitored. The press department of the Ministry of People's Enlightenment and Propaganda held daily conferences in which they instructed journalists about what could be printed. In addition to the censorship of forms of media, rallies and campaigns were held to reinforce Nazi ideals and increase loyalty to the party.
Hitler blamed the Jews for the evils of the world. He believed a democracy would lead to communism. Therefore, in Hitler’s eyes, a dictatorship was the only way to save Germany from the threats of communism and Jewish treason. The Program of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party was the instrument for the Nazis to convince the German people to put Hitler into power. Point one of the document states, “We demand the union of all Germans in a great Germany on the basis of the principle of self-determination of all peoples.” 1 This point explicates the Nazi proposition that Germany will only contain German citizens and also, that these citizens would display his or her self-determination towards Germany to the fullest.
Overall, Hitler and the Nazi party were able to politically pursued people into joining the political party. They were a convincingly stable economic party with claims that they were able to put onto other people, which promoted his anti-Semitic society. He was able to take control of learning systems and made sure that all forms of education, art, and intellectual ideals supported him. Because of Adolf Hitler’s ability to manipulate words and turn them into striking action, the Nazi party was able to grow with immense strength, dauntingly fast.
Imagine you are a thirteen year old growing up in Germany, 1938. Some of the kids at school are talking about a new program called the Hitlerjugend (or Hitler Youth). It sounds fun and exciting with its camping trips and home meetings so you decide to join. The Hitlerjugend is just as fun and exciting as it sounded and as the years pass you gain new skills; loyalty to Hitler and German; and growing hatred for Jews, Blacks, the handicapped, and other “burdens of the state”. To you this is simply a thought but to many children in the 1930’s this was a reality. The Hitler Youth was a genius yet terrible organization.
In order to successfully address this question, one must first consider the definition of the very nebulous term Volksgemeinschaft. It was an expression used to depict the harmonious, classless national community ideal made up of the Herrenvolk, or master race. As a term used polemically by the Nazis to engender a form of "identity politics" and therefore oppose any notion of politics based on universal and objective class interests that it aimed to transcend, it helped them gain collective support from an already economically, psychologically and politically distraught post-war nation. The Volksgemeinschaft ideal was one of the key elements of Nazi ideology and was used to legitimate much of the regime's social policy whilst also providing support for their opposition to liberal individualism and Marxist class antagonism. Although to some extent rather imaginary and mythical, it was the key component to encompass the National Socialist dogma of the party, one which integrated the collective Nationalist spirit with the Socialism of diminished class divisions. It operated as a form of psychological Gleischaltung toward the increasingly totalitarian restructuring of German society in a very radical way that disrupted traditional loyalties between members of the same social class, religion and group organisation towards a more Nazified awareness and consciousness. Every single German was obligated to unite with this community, to embrace and share the common faith. According to Hitler "No one is excepted from the crisis of the Reich. This Volk is but yourselves. There may not be a single person who excludes himself from this obligation." However, the Volksgemeinschaft ideal was flawed, it was duplicitous like much of Nazi policy. Con...
Nazism possess the core features of totalitarianism, however has a few differences which distinguishes it. Totalitarianism, by the Friedrich-Brzezinski definition, is when the government establishes complete control over all aspects of the state,maintaining the complete control of laws and over what people can say, think and do. Nazi Germany satisfies most of this criteria, as they had a one party system without political opposition. Moreover, they had a single unchallenged leader, in Hitler, to whom the entire nation conformed to. Furthermore, the party had nearly complete control over the country, controlling what people thought through propaganda and censorship, as well as what people could do through fear and terror. However, there are
In WWII Germany was controlled as a fascist totalitarian state under the rule of Adolf Hitler. In 1933, the president of the Weimar Republic appointed Hitler as the chancellor of Germany. He continued gaining support from Germans by telling the Germans what they wanted to hear. He blamed problems on the Jews and promised to solve problems from the depression. Hitler gave the working class more jobs by destroying Jewish companies, the unemployed workers were given jobs of construction of building more works, and farmers were offered higher wages for crops. As chancellor, he controlled the media and censored comments against the war. As a fascist state, extreme nationalism was displayed and gained support through propaganda against Jews. Hitler wanted a larger military for territorial expansion. Eight countries were conquered by him: Poland, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, the ...
Adolf Hitler came to power over Germany in January of 1933. He hated Jews and blamed them for everything bad that had ever happened to Germany. Hitler’s goal in life was to eliminate the Jewish population. With his rise to power in Germany, he would put into action his plan of elimination. This is not only why German Jews were the main target of the Holocaust, but why they were a large part of the years before, during, and after the Holocaust. Hitler’s “final solution” almost eliminated the Jewish population in Europe during World War II. At the end of the war and along with his suicide, the Jewish population would survive the horror known as the Holocaust and the Jews would eventually find their way back to their homeland of Israel as well as find new communities to call home.
have to ask why? One of the main reasons was the use of propaganda and
The 1940’s was a time of great conflict between the United States and Europe. This led to World War II, which began on June 14th, 1940 when German troops were sent to France to occupy Paris (Nash 500). Before the United States entered World War II many conflicts erupted throughout Europe such as the advancement of German troops into various countries (Nash 501-502). The main source of these conflicts was a man by the name of Adolf Hitler. Hitler was a power hungry man who had the drive to become a political leader (Nash 492). But, the ways by which he obtained leadership were repulsive. He struck fear into the eyes of those in which opposed his teaching and killed whoever stood in his way (Nash 493). Germany faced troubling times after World War I. Hitler looked at this as the perfect opportunity to rise to power. He turned a party that consisted of a small amount of workers into the National Socialist German Workers’ party, which later became known as the Nazi party. During the 1920s, Hitler performed many speeches in order to make the Nazi party better known. In his speeches he talked about eliminating the differences between the rich and poor in order to prevent divided social classes. This made his party strong, attractive, and it quickly gained many supporters (Nash 494). By August 1934, Hitler became the Dictator of Germany and began mass takeover of Europe and World War II began (Nash 495). It was at this point when he began mass takeover of Europe and World War II began (Nash 500). He sent Nazi troops to take over nearby land, which made neighboring countries nervous. One of these countries, Russia, made a non-aggression pact with Hitler as a way to try to protect their country. Even though H...
On 30 January 1933, the German president, Paul von Hindenburg, selected Adolf Hitler to be the head of the government. This was very unexpected. Hitler was the leader of an extreme right-wing political party, the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party. Hitler sought to expand Germany with new territories and boundaries. Hitler also focused on rebuilding Germany’s military strength. In many speeches Hitler made, he spoke often about the value of “racial purity” and the dominance of the Aryan master race. The Nazi’s spread their racist beliefs in schools through textbooks, radios, new...
To this day it remains incomprehensible to justify a sensible account for the uprising of the Nazi Movement. It goes without saying that the unexpectedness of a mass genocide carried out for that long must have advanced through brilliant tactics implemented by a strategic leader, with a promising policy. Adolf Hitler, a soldier in the First World War himself represents the intolerant dictator of the Nazi movement, and gains his triumph by arousing Germany from its devastated state following the negative ramifications of the war. Germany, “foolishly gambled away” by communists and Jews according to Hitler in his chronicle Mein Kampf, praises the Nazi Party due to its pact to provide order, racial purity, education, economic stability, and further benefits for the state (Hitler, 2.6). Albert Speer, who worked closely under Hitler reveals in his memoir Inside the Third Reich that the Führer “was tempestuously hailed by his numerous followers,” highlighting the appreciation from the German population in response to his project of rejuvenating their state (Speer, 15). The effectiveness of Hitler’s propaganda clearly served its purpose in distracting the public from suspecting the genuine intentions behind his plan, supported by Albert Camus’ insight in The Plague that the “townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words, they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences”(Camus, 37). In this sense “humanists” represent those who perceive all people with virtue and pureness, but the anti-humanist expression in the metaphor shows the blind-sidedness of such German citizens in identifying cruel things in the world, or Hitler. When the corruption within Nazism does receive notice, Hitler at that point given h...
education, as it was likely to bring up lots of conflict, so it had to
'Nazi Germany ' represented the period from 1933s to 1945s, which played an important role in prosperous German history and the modern European history. After Germany participated in First World War in the first half of the 20th century, the whole society was glutted with unemployment, poverty, hunger, inflation and moral corruption. The public couldn’t feel the republican democracy benefits.
MODERN HISTORY – RESEARCH ESSAY “To what extent was Nazi Germany a Totalitarian state in the period from 1934 to 1939?” The extent to which Nazi Germany was a totalitarian state can be classed as a substantial amount. With Hitler as Fuhrer and his ministers in control of most aspects of German social, political, legal, economical, and cultural life during the years 1934 to 1939, they mastered complete control and dictation upon Germany. In modern history, there have been some governments, which have successfully, and others unsuccessfully carried out a totalitarian state. A totalitarian state is one in which a single ideology is existent and addresses all aspects of life and outlines means to attain the final goal, government is run by a single mass party through which the people are mobilized to muster energy and support.
The Rise of the Nazi Party Hitler’s rise to power was the result of many factors, but Hitler’s ability to take advantage of Germany’s poor leadership and economic and political conditions was the most significant factor. His ability to manipulate the media and the German public whilst taking advantage of Germany’s poor leadership resulted in both the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party. During the early 1920s, Germany was struggling with economic instability and political uncertainty. Germany, after being defeated in the Great War, was forced to sign the unforgiving treaty of Versailles, which the Weimar Republic was held responsible for. This brought forward feelings of fear, anger and insecurity towards the Weimar Republic.