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Learn how Adolf Hitler came to power in 1930s Germany, established a dictatorship, and unleashed the horrors of the Holocaust, targeting millions.
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Hitler Comes to Power • In the early 1930s, the mood in Germany was grim. Economic depression had hit the country especially hard, and millions of people were out of work. Nearly 40% unemployment. • The German government was weakened by the defeat during WWI fifteen years earlier. • These conditions provided the chance for the rise of a new leader, Adolf Hitler, and his party, the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Naziparty for short.
Hitler Comes to Power • Hitler was a powerful and charismatic speaker who attracted many Germans who were desperate for change. • He promised a better life and a new and glorious Germany. • The Nazis appealed to the unemployed, young people, and members of the lower middle class (small store owners, office employees, craftsmen, and farmers).
Hitler Comes to Power • In January 1933 Hitler was appointed chancellor, the head of the German government, and many Germans believed that they had found a savior for their nation • Hitler moved quickly to turn Germany into a one-party dictatorship and to organize the police power necessary to enforce Nazi policies.
Nazi Rule • Under the new Nazi rule: • Reichstag passes Enabling Act (legally for five years) • Hitler put an end individual freedoms, including freedom of press, speech, and assembly. • Individuals lost the right to privacy, which meant that officials could read people's mail, listen in on telephone conversations, and search private homes without a warrant. • An important tool of Nazi terror was the Protective Squad (Schutzstaffel), or SS, which began as a special guard for Adolf Hitler and other party leaders.
Nazi Rule • By 1934 Hitler became a dictator with the death of the president Hindenburg. • SS chief Heinrich Himmler also turned the regular (nonparty) police forces into an instrument of terror • Secret State Police or Gestapo; these non-uniformed police used ruthless and cruel methods throughout Germany to identify and arrest political opponents and others who refused to obey laws and policies of the Nazi regime.
Hitler’s Goals • Create a master race • Aryan • Create a thousand year empire(Third Reich) • Expand territory • Hitler used methods of terror and spectacle SS (Schutzstaffeln) • began massive rearmament program • Reduced unemployment to less than 500,000
The Holocaust • Began soon after Hitler took power • Jews were main targets • Nuremberg laws (1935) (defining who was Jewish) • Jews were encouraged to leave Germany
The Holocaust • After the invasion of the Soviet Union, mass exterminations of “undesirables” began to take place • Einsatzgruppen (Mobile Killing Units) • Followed behind army in Russia and would line up people and shoot them into mass graves. • ReinhardHeydrich- one of the architects of the Concentration Camp/ Holocaust System • (SS Final Solution Coordinator) • Probably killed one million people this way
Concentration Camps • After Einsatzgruppen squads proved too slow, SS decides on more efficient method • Death/work camps • Millions of Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, mentally ill, disabled, homosexuals, and others were rounded up were either killed or sent to camps • At these camps, victims were worked and died or were immediately killed
Concentration Camps • These camps became giant death factories • Large gas chambers and crematoriums • Sometimes large pit fires were used • Victims were also used for medical experimentation • In the end, 11,000,000 victims • 6,000,000 were Jews
Concentration Camps • After Einsatzgruppen squads proved too slow, SS decides on more efficient method • Death/work camps • Millions of Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, mentally ill, disabled, homosexuals, and others were rounded up • Either killed or sent to camps • At these camps, victims were worked and died or were immediately killed
Concentration Camps • These camps became giant death factories • Large gas chambers and crematoriums • Sometimes large pit fires were used • Victims were also used for medical experimentation • In the end, 11,000,000 victims • 6,000,000 were Jews