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Rise of the Nazi Party
Few would have thought that the Nazi Party, starting as a gang of unemployed soldiers in 1919, would become the legal government of Germany by 1933. In fourteen years, a once obscure corporal, Adolf Hitler , would become the Chancellor of Germany. -
Rise of the Nazi Party
World War I ended in 1918 with a grisly total of 37 million casualties, including 9 million dead combatants. German propaganda had not prepared the nation for defeat, resulting in a sense of injured German national pride. Those military and political leaders who were responsible claimed that Germany had been "stabbed in the back" by its leftwing politicians, Communists, and Jews. -
Rise of the Nazi Party
The German population swallowed the bitter pill of defeat as the victorious Allies punished Germany severely. In the Treaty of Versailles , Germany was disarmed and forced to pay reparations to France and Britain for the huge costs of the war. -
Rise of the Nazi Party
By the end of 1920, the Nazi Party had about 3,000 members. A year later Hitler became its official leader, or Führer. -
Rise of the Nazi Party
While in prison, Hitler wrote volume one of Mein Kampf (My Struggle) , which was published in 1925. This work detailed Hitler's radical ideas of German nationalism, antisemitism, and anti-Bolshevism. Linked with Social Darwinism, the human struggle that said that might makes right, Hitler's book became the ideological base for the Nazi Party's racist beliefs and murderous practices. -
Rise of the Nazi Party
Nazi Party failed to make inroads in the cities and in May 1928.The Party shifted its strategy to rural and small town areas and fueled antisemitism by calling for expropriation of Jewish agricultural property and by condemning large Jewish department stores. Party propaganda proved effective at winning over university students, veterans' organizations, and professional groups, although the Party became increasingly identified with young men of the lower middle classes. -
Rise of the Nazi Party
The Nazi Party began building a mass movement. From 27,000 members in 1925, the Party grew to 108,000 in 1929. The SA was the paramilitary unit of the Party, a propaganda arm that became known for its strong arm tactics of street brawling and terror. The SS was established as an elite group with special duties within the SA, but it remained inconsequential until Heinrich Himmler became its leader in 1929. -
Rise of the Nazi Party
Heinrich Brüning was the first chancellor under the new presidential system. He was unable to unify the government, and in September 1930, there were new elections. The Nazi Party won an important victory, capturing 18.3% of the vote to make it the second largest party in the Reichstag. -
Rise of the Nazi Party
The Weimar democracy proved unable to cope with national despair as unemployment doubled from three million to six million, or one in three, by 1932. The existing "Great Coalition" government, a combination of left-wing and conservative parties, collapsed while arguing about the rising cost of unemployment benefits. -
Rise of the Nazi Party
Hindenburg's term as president was ending in the spring of 1932. At age 84, he was reluctant to run again, but knew that if he didn't, Hitler would win. Hindenburg won the election, but Hitler received 37% of the vote. -
Rise of the Nazi Party
In the election of July 1932, the Nazi Party won 37% of the Reichstag seats, thanks to a massive propaganda campaign. For the next six months, the most powerful German leaders were embroiled in a series of desperate political maneuverings. Ultimately, these major players severely underestimated Hitler's political abilities. -
Nazification
"The Burning of the Books in Nazi Germany, 1933: The American Response" by Guy Stern. -
Nazification
On February 27, 1933, the Reichstag building went up in flames. Nazis immediately claimed that this was the beginning of a Communist revolution. This fact leads many historians to believe that Nazis actually set, or help set the fire. Others believe that a deranged Dutch Communist set the fire. The issue has never been resolved. -
Nazification
The SA (Sturmabteilung) had been instrumental in Hitler's rise to power. In early 1934, there were 2.5 million SA men compared with 100,000 men in the regular army. Hitler knew that the regular army opposed the SA becoming its core. Fearing the power of the regular army to force him from office, Hitler curried their favor by attacking the leadership of the SA in the "Night of the Long Knives." -
Nazification
On August 2, 1934, President Hindenburg died. Hitler combined the offices of Reich Chancellor and President, declaring himself Führer and Reich Chancellor, or Reichsführer (Leader of the Reich). -
Nazification
Hitler announced the Nuremberg Laws in 1935. These laws stripped Jews of their civil rights as German citizens and separated them from Germans legally, socially, and politically. Jews were also defined as a separate race under "The Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor." Being Jewish was now determined by ancestry; thus the Germans used race, not religious beliefs or practices, to define the Jewish people. This law forbade marriages or sexual relations between Jews and Germans. -
Nazification
A Nazi organization that counted 60% of Germany's youth among its members by 1935. -
Nazification
In 1936, Berlin hosted the Olympics. Hitler viewed this as a perfect opportunity to promote a favorable image of Nazism to the world. Monumental stadiums and other Olympic facilities were constructed as Nazi showpieces. Leni Riefenstahl was commissioned to create a film, Olympia, for the purpose of Nazi propaganda. Some have called her previous film in 1935, Triumph of the Will, one of the great propaganda pieces of the century. In it, she portrayed Hitler as a god. -
Nazification
In March 1938, as part of Hitler's quest for uniting all German-speaking people and for Lebensraum, Germany took over Austria without bloodshed. The Anschluss occurred with the overwhelming approval of the Austrian people. No countries protested this violation of the Treaty of Versailles. -
Nazification
In September 1938, Hitler eyed the northwestern area of Czechoslovakia, called the Sudetenland , which had three million German-speaking citizens. Hitler did not want to march into the Sudetenland until he was certain that France and Britain would not intervene. First, he met with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and threatened to go to war if he did not receive the territory. -
Nazification
Hitler prevailed upon Britain, France and, Italy to agree to the cession of the Sudetenland. The Western powers chose appeasement rather than military confrontation. Germany occupied the Sudetenland on October 15, 1938. -
Nazification
In Germany, open antisemitism became increasingly accepted, climaxing in the "Night of Broken Glass" (Kristallnacht) on November 9, 1938. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels initiated this free-for-all against the Jews, during which nearly 1,000 synagogues were set on fire and 76 were destroyed. More than 7,000 Jewish businesses and homes were looted, about one hundred Jews were killed and as many as 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps to be tormented, many for months. -
Nazification
In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Britain and France had no choice but to declare war on Germany. World War II had begun. -
Nazification
On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland, officially starting World War II. Two days later, Britain and France, now obliged by treaty to help Poland, declared war on Germany. Germany's military conquest put it in a position to establish the New Order, a plan to abuse and eliminate so-called undesirables, notably Jews and Slavs. -
Ghettos
On November 23, 1939 General Governor Hans Frank issued an ordinance that Jews ten years of age and older living in the General Government had to wear the Star of David on armbands or pinned to the chest or back. This made the identification of Jews easier when the Nazis began issuing orders establishing ghettos. -
Ghettos
All ghettos had the most appalling, inhuman living conditions. The smallest ghetto housed approximately 3,000 people. Warsaw, the largest ghetto, held 400,000 people. Lódz, the second largest, held about 160,000. Other Polish cities with large Jewish ghettos included Bialystok, Czestochowa, Kielce, Kraków, Lublin, Lvóv, Radom, and Vilna. -
Ghettos
Ghetto life was wretched. The ghettos were filthy, with poor sanitation. Extreme overcrowding forced many people to share a room. Disease was rampant. Staying warm was difficult during bitter cold winters without adequate warm clothes and heating fuel. Food was in such short supply that many slowly starved to death. -
The Camps
In September 1941, the Nazis began using gassing vans--trucks loaded with groups of people who were locked in and asphyxiated by carbon monoxide. These vans were used until the completion of the first death camp, Chelmno, which began operations in late 1941. -
The Camps
On December 7, 1941, the Nacht und Nebel (Night and Fog) order was issued to deter resistance by allowing military courts to swiftly sentence resisters to death. Those arrested under this order were said to have disappeared into the "night and fog." -
The Camps
In the beginning of the systematic mass murder of Jews, Nazis used mobile killing squads called Einsatzgruppen. The Einsatzgruppen consisted of four units of between 500 and 900 men each which followed the invading German troops into the Soviet Union. By the time Himmler ordered a halt to the shooting in the fall of 1942, they had murdered approximately 1,500,000 Jews. -
The Camps
In January 1942, SS official Reinhard Heydrich held a meeting of Nazi government officials to present the Final Solution. At this meeting, known as the Wannsee Conference , the Nazi officials agreed to SS plans for the transport and destruction of all 11 million Jews of Europe. -
The Camps
Starting early in 1942, the Jewish genocide (sometimes called the Judeocide) went into full operation. Auschwitz 2 (Birkenau), Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibór began operations as death camps. There was no selection process; Jews were destroyed upon arrival. -
Resistance
Eastern Europe, especially Belorussia, the western Ukraine, and Lithuania, had wide expanses of forests and swamps which were ideal for guerrilla warfare. Joseph Stalin called for the establishment of an underground movement in the occupied territories to fight the enemy, and in June 1942, central headquarters were established for the entire partisan movement. -
Resistance
April 19, 1943 marked the beginning of an armed revolt by a courageous and determined group of Warsaw ghetto dwellers. The Jewish Fighter Organization (ZOB) led the insurgency and battled for a month, using weapons smuggled into the ghetto. The Nazis responded by bringing in tanks and machine guns, burning blocks of buildings, destroying the ghetto, and ultimately killing many of the last 60,000 Jewish ghetto residents. -
Resistance
Late summer of 1943 saw armed uprisings at several ghettos and camps. On August 2, seven hundred Jews torched parts of the Treblinka death camp. Most of the rebels were killed within the compound and of the 150-200 who escaped, only a dozen survived. Two weeks later, Jewish paramilitary organizations within the Bialystok ghetto attacked the German army. The revolt ended the same day with the death or capture of all the resisters. -
Resistance
September 1, inhabitants of the Vilna ghetto revolted. Most of the participants were killed, but some managed to escape and joined partisan units. -
The Camps
By the end of 1943 the Germans closed down the death camps built specifically to exterminate Jews. The death tolls for the camps are as follows: Treblinka, (750,000 Jews); Belzec, (550,000 Jews); Sobibór, (200,000 Jews); Chelmno, (150,000 Jews) and Lublin (also called Majdanek, 50,000 Jews). Auschwitz continued to operate through the summer of 1944; its final death total was about 1 million Jews and 1 million non-Jews. -
Rescue and Liberation
Those who attempted to rescue Jews and others from the Nazi death sentence did so at great risk to their own safety. Anyone found harboring a Jew, for example, was shot or publicly hanged as a warning to others. Sharing scarce resources with those in hiding was an additional sacrifice on the part of the rescuer. -
Resistance
On October 7, the sonderkommando (prisoners forced to handle the bodies of gas chamber victims) succeeded in blowing up one of the four crematoria at Auschwitz . All of the saboteurs were captured and killed. -
Rescue and Liberation
As Allied troops entered Nazi-occupied territories, the final rescue and liberation transpired. Allied troops who stumbled upon the concentration camps were shocked at what they found. Large ditches filled with bodies, rooms of baby shoes, and gas chambers with fingernail marks on the walls all testified to Nazi brutality. -
The Camps
The Nazis began dismantling the camps, hoping to cover up their crimes. By the late winter/early spring of 1945, they sent prisoners walking to camps in central Germany. Thousands died in what became known as death marches. -
Aftermath
Beginning in the summer of 1945, a series of high-level visitors examined the DP camps. Visitors included Earl G. Harrison, President Truman's envoy; David Ben-Gurion, future Prime Minister of Israel; and the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry. Harrison wrote, "We appear to be treating the Jews as the Nazis treated them, except that we don't exterminate them." -
Aftermath
In Nuremberg, a war-ravaged town in southern Germany, 22 high ranking Nazi officials were named and brought to trial before the world. Robert Jackson, Chief Prosecutor for the United States at the Nuremberg Trials, addressed the International Military Tribunal on November 20, 1945, the first day in court. -
Aftermath
The United States and Britain were the two countries in a position to help resolve this crisis. However, the U.S. was reluctant to increase its immigration quota. Britain, which held Palestine as a mandated territory, was hesitant to take a stand that would alienate the Arabs, who did not want to see Palestine become a Jewish homeland. -
Aftermath
t became increasing clear that the problem of approximately one million displaced people, about 80% Christian and 20% Jewish, would not be resolved easily. In 1947, a series of bills was introduced in the U.S. Congress to relax immigration quotas, but none passed. -
Aftermath
On May 14, 1948, the Jews proclaimed the independent State of Israel as theirs, and the British withdrew from Palestine. The next day, neighboring Arab nations attacked Israel.In this same month, the U.S. legislature passed the Displaced Persons' Act of 1948. However, the law had strong antisemitic elements, limiting the number of Jewish displaced persons who could emigrate to the United States. -
Aftermath
June 1950, the antisemitic provisions were finally eliminated. -
Aftermath
In May 1960, Eichmann was kidnapped by Israeli agents in Argentina. He was charged with crimes against Jews, Poles, Slavs, Gypsies, and others, including their arrest and imprisonment, deportation to extermination camps, theft of property, mass expulsions, and murder. Eichmann was sentenced to death, and executed at midnight May 31, 1962. -
Aftermath
More than fifty years after the end of World War II, a new chapter of Holocaust history is unfolding. Evidence is emerging of the complicated financial transactions between the Nazis and the European countries and businesses that profited by the genocide. Released on May 7, 1997, a United States study, directed by Commerce Undersecretary Stuart Eizenstat, describes "one of the greatest thefts by a government in history."
