The NAZI REGIME

1. The NAZI REGIME

2. Success of nazism In the 1930s and early 1940s Nazi-type movements could be found in Sweden, Britain, Italy, Spain and even in the US in the twenties and thirties of the last century. These factors may have included: • Economic devastation all over Europe after WWI • Lack of orientation of many people after the breakdown of monarchy in many European countries. • A perception that there was a disproportionate number of Jews in the German bourgeoisie (or upper class). • Perceived Jewish involvement in WWI of war profiteering • Appeal of socialism or socialist rhetoric to the German working class • Humiliation of Germany at the Treaty of Versailles • Rejection of Communism (particularly redistribution of wealth ) and the perception that socialism and Communism were Jewish-inspired and Jewish -led movements; hence the Nazi use of the term Judeo-Bolshevik • Hatred of the Jews

3. A massive crowd Heiling Hitler

4. The Nazis and anti-Semitism Immediately after the Reichtag elections on 5 March 1933, which marked the real beginning to Hitler’s and the Nazis’ takeover of Germany, Nazi organisations began to unleash their anger against the Jews. Jews were molested, some even killed, and Jewish businesses were harassed or destroyed. • The first anti-Semitic initiative was the boycott of Jewish stores in April 1933. • More than 2,000 racist laws and decrees were issued between 1933 and 1945. • The Nazis did not exclusively view the Jews as a religious community, but rather as belonging to the ‘Semitic race’ that tried to gain power at the expense of the Aryan race. • The position of the Jews at the center of both political and economic affairs was perfect for theories of political conspiracy. • In schools, the Nazi regime put much energy into showing the children why it was necessary to take action against the Jews. The pupils were indoctrinated with delusions of the Jews’ hunger for world dominance, that the Jews were an inferior and criminal race, and that the Jews were a serious danger to the German people.

5. Nazi ideologies • The most coherent effort at presenting the ideological characteristics of Nazism can be found in Hitler’s autobiographical work, Mein Kampf (‘My Struggle’). • This book was written between 1923 and 1924, while Hitler was in prison for participating in the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich. In his book, Hitler presents his inalterable ‘worldview’ (Weltanschauung), which after the Nazi takeover became the political-ideological basis of the new regime.

6. Hitler’s Weltanschauung (opinion) Fundamental for all these aspects was Hitler’s steady belief in the biological and cultural superiority of the Aryan race. It was consequently a very important part of Hitler’s ideology that the races should not be mixed. He saw the ‘purity of the blood’ a prerequisite for the coming greatness of the German people. It was entirely a system of prejudices that included: • A racist interpretation of world history, where the Aryan race is presented as ‘creating cultures’ and the Jewish race as ‘destroying cultures’. • A view of life: the strong survive, the weak perish. • A love of anything militaristic: only in war does man show his true abilities. • A belief that Germany can (and should) become a world power.

7. Nazism, the Effects These theories were used to justify a totalitarian political agenda of racial hatred and suppression using all the means of the state, and suppressing dissent. The Nazi regime emphasized anti-communism and the leader principle(Führerprinzip), a key element of fascist ideology in which the ruler is deemed to embody the political movement and the nation. Unlike other fascist ideologies, Nazism was virulently racist. Some of the manifestations of Nazi racism were: • Anti-Semitism, culminating in the Holocaust • Ethnic nationalism, including the notion of Germans' status as the Herrenvolk ("master race") and Übermensch • A belief in the need to purify the German race through eugenics - this culminated in the involuntary euthanasia of disabled people and the compulsory sterilization of people with mental deficiencies or illnesses perceived as hereditary • Anti-clericalism was also part of Nazi ideology. Although it was never acted upon as the Nazis often used the church to justify their stance and included many Christian symbols in the Third Reich.

8. Propaganda in Nazi Germany • Propaganda within Nazi Germany was taken to a new and frequently perverse level. Hitler was very aware of the value of good propaganda and he appointed Joseph Goebbels as head of propaganda. • "The essence of propaganda consists in winning people over to an idea so sincerely, so vitally, that in the end they succumb to it utterly and can never escape from it." Goebbels

9. Goebbels and propaganda • Propaganda is the art of persuasion - persuading others that your 'side of the story' is correct. • Propaganda might take the form of persuading others that your military might is too great to be challenged; that your political might within a nation is too great or popular to challenge etc. • In NaziGermany, Dr Joseph Goebbels was in charge of propaganda. Goebbels official title was Minister of Propaganda and National Enlightenment.

10. Goebbels position • to ensure nobody in Germany could read or see anything that was hostile or damaging to the Nazi Party. • to ensure that the views of the Nazis were put across in the most persuasive manner possible. • To ensure that everybody thought in the correct manner, Goebbels set up the Reich Chamber of Commerce in 1933. This organisation dealt with literature, art, music, radio, film, newspapers etc.

11. Analyse this picture

12. Why did the Germans support the Nazi Party and its persecution of the Jews? • The majority of the German population believed that the Nazi regime would lead Germany out of years of political turmoil. • This belief survived the problems (for instance the bad economy) in the first years of the regime. • A series of successes on the international scene – for instance the naval agreement with Great Britain 1935 • The Germans’ faith in the Nazi regime carried with it a broad acceptance of the Nazis’ measures against the Jews. • The German national unity thus explicitly excluded the Jews. To belong to the German people meant accepting what this exclusion implied, i.e. that the Jews were not a part of Germany and its people.

13. Nazism, the Backlash Effects Perhaps the primary effect has been that Nazi policies shunned the attempt to use biology to explain or influence social issues, for at least two generations after Nazi Germany's brief existence. The Nazi descendants have been mute in the post-war democracies with some exceptions when interviewed by psychologists and historians. In Norway a group of descendants have taken the official stigmatizing appellation "Nazi children" in order to break the silence and to protest against the continuous demonization of their families. Some historical revisionists disseminate propaganda which minimizes the Holocaust and other Nazi acts, and attempts to put a positive spin on the policies of the Nazi regime and the events which occurred under it. These revisionists are often, however, either aligned with or in the employ of neo-Nazis, and this fact itself often casts suspicion on their beliefs.

14. Nuremberg Laws • The so-called Nuremberg Laws in 1935 were a landmark event. • They were a collection of race laws that definitively segregated the Jews from the German Volksgemeinschaft (‘people’s community’). • The most explicit expression of anti-Semitism was seen in the violent atrocities committed during the so-called Night of Broken Glass in 1938. • Tens of thousands of Jews were imprisoned in concentration camps, while Jewish businesses, property and synagogues were destroyed. • The Jews were even presented with the bill for the slaughters committed by the regime: a fine of 1 billion Reichmark for their ‘hostility towards the German people’.

15. A couple violating the laws by dating each other “I am a filthy sow who tainted my Aryan blood by frequenting (Having relations with)a Jew”