Hitler's early years:
- born 1889 in then, Austro-Hungarian Empire
- was not great in school
- moved to Vienna 1907, applied & rejected from Academy of fine arts
- Six years of aimless unhappiness (in poor districts of the city)
- 1919, served in the war (found his purpose)
- awarded Iron Cross First Class
- War ended while he was in the hospital, recovering from British gas attack
- ^ By then formed ideas @ the core of National Socialism
- German Nationalism
- Support authoritarianism
- oppose democracy/ socialism
- racially impaired view of society
- anti-semitism
- German Volk= master race
- No close family (parents died), few friends
The Creation of the Nazi Party:
- Hitler, committed rightist attitude
- 1919, employed as a sort-of-spy for the German Army
- ^ consequently, came in contact with the DAP (Deutsche Arbeiter-German worker's party)
- Nationalist, antisemitic, anti-Capitalist group
- Hitler became a member of it's committee
- Drew up 25 points with part founder, Anton Drexler
25 points (some important ones...)
1) We demand the union of all Germans in a Greater Germany
2) Equality of rights for German people in other nations, and reversal of treaty of Versailles
3) Demand more land to feed and settle all the people
4) Only members of Volk can be citizens
7) State provide livelihood for it's people, if it cant non-member will be deported
10) It must be the first priority for everyone do do (mental or physical) activity for the state
14)Profit Sharing in large industrial enterprises
15) Extensive development for the elderly
18) Ruthless prosecution of anyone who goes against the greater good of the Party
22)Abolition of Mercenary army, formation of people' s army
23)Legal welfare on deliberate political mendacity and its dissemination in the process
25)We demand the creation of a strong central power.
- Party became: NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers Party
- Hitler: Chief of propaganda
- powerful speeches that hugely increased membership
- added armed forces to intimidate opposition
- Early Propaganda
- Swastika
- Nazi Salute
- uniform
- Politically savvy- Hitler gained power, others tried to limit power, Hitler resigned, they needed Hitler to keep gaining members & asked for him back, Hitler came back more powerful than ever, founder (Drexler) mad & resigns, Hitler becomes chairman (Fuhrer)
- 1921-1923 Party Strengthened
- Armed troops, led by Ernst Rohm, set up as SA (stormtroopers) - paramilitary unit (planned thuggery & violence)
- 1921 First Newspaper- Volkischer Beobachter (Peoples observer)
- 1922- Hitler won support of Julius Streicher (leader of rival right-wing party) & other influential people
- 1923- Party membership = 20,000
- Nazi party still a fringe party, limited to Bavaria region
The Beer Hall Putsch (1923)
- Mussolini's 1922 take-over + internal crisis in Germany= good time for Hitler to attack
- Kahr & the Bavarian state, hitler's allies in the "March on Berlin"
- Aimed to moblize paramilitary units, the SA, parts of the actual military & sieze national power
- Planned didn't work because:
- Overestimated public support to overthrow the Weimar
- lack of planning
- His allies didn't think it would work and held back @ the last second
- Nov. 9th, Hitler and Nazis marched with 2000 SA members, no military backing
- quickly squashed
- 14 Nazis killed
- Hitler Arrested
The Consequences:
- Hitler charged with treason
- NSADP was banned
- Hitler gained significant political recognition
- Trial, huge propaganda success
- Gained respect of other right-winged
- Very minimal sentence (10 months) seemed like the Wiemar was encouraging hitler
- Wrote "Mein Kampf" while in prison
- Action over thought
- Racism
- hierarchy of races
- Social Darwinism, necessitated a struggle between the races
- Racial Purity (blood of the "weak" would poison the "strong")
- Aryan Race's job to remain pure and dominate inferior races
- Anti-Democracy
- Parliamentary gov't, weak and ineffective & promoted communism (the ultimate evil)
- Wanted one-party-state run on the Fuhrerprinzip (the leadership principle) that rejected liberal views and representative gov't
- Nationalism
- Armistice of 1918, Treaty of Versailles, and Lost territory had to be overturned
- Wanted to create the "third reich" to include all former German territory & all other Germans (ex. Austrian Germans, Germans in Sudetenland)
- Dreamed of a German superpower
- Conquest of Poland, Ukrain, and Russia for new raw materials, cheap labor, and food supplies needed to obtiain supremacy
Socialist aspect of Nazism:
- Volksgemeinschaft (people's community)
- People work together to promote "German values"
- at the cost of all personal liberties
- Overcome differences of class, religion, and politics
The Ideology of National Socialism
- Nazism lacked coherent thought & was simplistic and superficial
- Not original, all ideas came from other nationalist & racist writings of the 19th century
- Nationalism, out of fervor generated in Germany's unification of 1871
- all-German Reich, repetition of demands for a "Greater Germany" during 1871 unification
- popularity for the volk, a product of growing racism and antisemitism in Germany
- Not necessarily an inevitable result of Germany's past (strong socialist propaganda all over europe at the time, only ever a big threat in Germany)
- hitler got out of prison and the paty was in shambles
- Officially re-founded 2/27/1925
- same time, Hitler wrote an article titled "a new beginning"
Strategy and Leadership
- In prison Hitler decided:
- He must get absolute power over the party
- Coup would not work, had to work within the Wiemar constitution and gain power legally
- Party deeply divided
- not everyone liked the "legal" approach
- policy diff. between nationalist and anti-capitalist members of the party
Mein Kampf
- Anti-semitism
- Jews controlling all newspapers & media ect.
- (they are way to powerful
- They look dirty "not lovers of water"
- Democracy is ingrained in the minds of Jews, claim
- Hitler associates Jews with:
- White slavery
- Marxism
- Prostitution
- Aryan Race, Jews were "tainting" Aryan blood
- If you are of two races, you are defined by the inferior one.
Hitler v. Stalin
- Both had hard early lives, family members died (very isolated)
- Neither was particularly good in school
- Hitler must appeal to the masses, Stalin focused on working his way up through the party itself
- Stalin- Bolsheivik already in power, Hitler- rises to power as the NSDP
- Both underestimated
- Stalin & Hitler instrumental in Party-building
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