In The Nazi Seizure of Power by William Sheridan Allen, the author is able to show the reader the support building strategy used by the Nazi party in Northeim and surrounding areas. Allen's thesis is that Nazi party was able to succeed the village of Northeim and else where because they were able to reach out the lower and middle class. Since these classes held the majority of the population, the Nazi party discovered what they wanted from government officials and then used that to persuade these classes to vote for them. To give you a background of the village of Northeim is vital to the understanding of how this party could have come in and take over the political scene so quickly.
Northeim was a small town that was placed in the valley of the Leine River. The concept that you could stand at one end of town and see the other side of town gave the citizens a sense of protection and security. It was a semi-medieval town with actual walls still surrounding the inner core of the city. The dominate religion in the city was Lutheran but the Catholics would begin to emerge in the late 1800s. The city was made up of people from mostly the working class. Because of the emergence of more technical academies and college preparatory schools there was the arrival of teachers, artisans, more government officials, and railroad personnel.
The class structure is built around four different categories of citizens. The lower class, which is made up of the unskilled and semiskilled workers, made up for one-third of the population. The lower middle class, who were the skilled workers, white-collar workers, farmers, and pensioners, made up another third of the Northeim population. The upper middle class that included the craft masters, civil servants, and businessmen made up a little over a fourth of the population. Finally the upper class, which was made up of businessmen, self-employed, and professionals made up barely four percent of the population. Though there was not much difference in the sizes of three of the classes, there were still large differences in the incomes of these classes. From the class breakdown you could see how the Nazi party could be so successful. With the classes set you then begin to see the emergence of the political parties.
The Reich was a dominant regime under the control of the infamous Hitler. Its rampant delinquencies of subjugating an entire race took nearly the entire world to impede. Hitler’s Secret is a novel by William Osborne that derives its setting from the World War II era in Bavaria. It encompasses two teenagers assigned to kidnap a girl who has proven influential to the Nazis. The teenage agents, Leni and Otto, confront numerous obstacles in their efforts to securely transfer the girl to Britain’s possession. Hitler’s Secret is an A grade book because it utilizes authentic historical content, ensures a balance of suspense and relief, and contains emotional characters.
The main political changes that the Nazi Party or the NSDAP endured during the period of November, 1923 until January 1933 was its rise from a small extreme right party to a major political force. It is vitally important that the reasons behind this rise to power also be examined, to explain why the NSDAP was able to rise to the top. However first a perspective on the Nazi party itself is necessary to account for the changing political fortunes of the Nazi Party.
The Gestapo was an information gathering and law enforcing body of the Nazi regime, which began its operation in 1933. The organization has been examined though many lenses, some more popular than others. The article, “ The Gestapo and German Society” by Robert Gellately argues how ultimately it was society that fueled the Gestapo’s power beyond the limits of what they could have achieved without society’s help. Other perspectives into the analysis of the Gestapo have included the organizations legal history and insights into key leaders such as Henirich Himmler. What some of these other perspectives lack is a thorough assessment of the Gestapo’s operations. Gellately created a compelling argument by determining what led to a Gestapo case being initiated and the number of employees per branch compared to the population to conclude that the Gestapo lacked the physical resources to be the motor of the terror system within the Nazi regime. Yet, the author leaves room to argue that German society had adequate reason to fear the brutal behaviour of the Gestapo regardless of private citizen’s cooperation in cases.
Before World War II, Britain was strictly divided into classes: the upper class, the middle class, and the lower working class. Once born into a class, it was almost impossible to leave; people were bound to classes for life. The structure was stern and rigid. George Orwell even called England (and by extension Britain) “the most class-ridden country under the sun.” Classes tolerated each other, but the “upper and middle class people were brought up to believe the lower classes dirty and inferior,” creating an environment of stark inequality (The Class System). The small upper class held the majority of the wealth and employed much of the large lower class as servants, paying them menial wages. The middle class, who consisted of doctors, shopkeepers, lawyers, and people in similar professions, remained sandwiched in the center. On September 7, 1940 the blitz began and bombs started to rain down on London. However, the force of the bombs did little to blast away the walls that separated and distinguished the classes.
2. Read the extracts below, which are taken from a variety of historians' views. What are their answers? To what extent do they agree? The answers, which are given by these extracts, tend to be along the same line. All of them seem to agree that the Nazis were very successful in protestant rural and middle class Germany. They also agree that it was big businesses, the young and the well off that were most likely to be in favour of the NSDAP.
“The Spirit of 1914” gives a comprehensive examination of the opinions and feelings felt during the beginning of the Great War by the German people. This monograph goes into extensive detail on the complexity of the German nation’s reactions and response to the vast, “patriotic outbursts…which many contemporaries and historians categorized as “war enthusiasm.””(2) The content of the book also centers on how German unity was portrayed. “Conservative journals claimed that these crowds spoke for public opinion…what had transformed a materialistic, egotistical German “society” into an idealistic, fraternal, national German “community.””(231)Verhey challenges the myth that all Germans wanted to go to war in 1914 by methodically explaining each of the different regions, classes, and political parties’ reactions and responses. The argument of his work comes down to how well he is able to answer the questions of:
In Sebastion Haffner’s Defying Hitler, the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party is told through a firsthand experience. Through this first-hand experience, Haffner answers the question as to how the Nazis were able to rise and stay in power. The Nazi party was formed at the end of the First World War. The Nazis faced a lot of criticism for their beliefs and tactics in the early stages and were viewed as a nuisance and nothing more. Every party needs a great leader and they found that in Adolf Hitler. The Nazis were able to rise to power with the help of Hitler, after a humiliating defeat in World War I which created a German society in despair, Hitlers anti-semitic view and his violently enforced propaganda
Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles reads: "The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies."(1) These words fueled the Nazi Party's rise to power and ignition of a Second World War. After World War I, the Allies dissected, punished, and disarmed Germany to prevent the outbreak of another brutal war. Consequently, German lands, acquired by Nazi force, were given back to their original countries, and Germany's army was reduced to 100,000 men. In addition, Germany was responsible for paying immense retribution to all of the Allied Forces, causing German money to lose its value. The result of the Treaty of Versailles was a weakened Germany, both martially and economically. The Weimar Republic, a liberal government set up after Germany's defeat, was inefficient in handling Germany's massive problems. Germany's ill state was the curtain call for a change in the Weimar administration, and Adolf Hitler led the push for a transformation. Once in power, Hitler designed laws that redefined the responsibilities of the citizen. The citizens' duties would allow the Germany to regain her autonomy in the eyes of the world. Although the citizens worked to increase Germany's overrall welfare, the State did not attempt to improve individual well-being. The State held one responsibility. It must protect the lives of its people, so that the people can, in turn, carry out their duties for the S...
This essay will examine how the lack of effective opposition and the weakness of the Weimar, was a major factor in the Nazis rising to power between 1919 and 1933.
When it appeared inevitable that Hitler was going to come into power, some businessmen became supporters of the Nazi party even though they feared a Nazi socialist nation. The reason businesses would sponsor a socialists party was so that the government could help a company profit as a sort of business insurance if it were to financially contribute to who was in power. Support was given to the conservative wing of the Nazi party because they were more likely to share in the interests of big business representatives rather than the more radical Nazis (Turner 95).
During the Holocaust, around six million Jews were murdered due to Hitler’s plan to rid Germany of “heterogeneous people” in Germany, as stated in the novel, Life and Death in the Third Reich by Peter Fritzsche. Shortly following a period of suffering, Hitler began leading Germany in 1930 to start the period of his rule, the Third Reich. Over time, his power and support from the country increased until he had full control over his people. Starting from saying “Heil Hitler!” the people of the German empire were cleverly forced into following Hitler through terror and threat. He had a group of leaders, the SS, who were Nazis that willingly took any task given, including the mass murder of millions of Jews due to his belief that they were enemies to Germany. German citizens were talked into participating or believing in the most extreme of things, like violent pogroms, deportations, attacks, and executions. Through the novel’s perspicacity of the Third Reich, readers can see how Hitler’s reign was a controversial time period summed up by courage, extremity, and most important of all, loyalty.
The National Socialist German Workers' Party, commonly known as the Nazi party, originated during the 1920s. Formerly, the Nazi Party’s main purpose was to abolish communism. However, ...
In the time leading up to and during Hitler’s reign in Germany, German citizens felt the impacts of the political as well as the economic situation of the country. These conditions in Germany led to the building of the Nazi party and to the Holocaust. The new government headed by Adolf Hitler changed the life of all Germans whether they joined the Nazi party themselves or opposed the ideas of Hitler or aided Jews to fight the persecution they suffered under this government.
If you have ever read the book 1984 by George Orwell, then an interesting topic may have crossed your mind. The way the classes of people break down can be quite similar, and very different at times. In the United States, we have classes like the lower class, the working class, and the middle class. In 1984, there were such classes as the Proles, the Outer Party, and the Inner Party. The way the classes are broken down in 1984 reminds me a little bit of my old history class. When I studied medieval times and the classes back then were broken down into the nobles, the bourgeois, and the serfs.
... with other factors, lured many Germans in to believing in the nazi ideals and supporting the Nazi party whilst stirring up a hatred of the current Weimar Republic.