Nazi Germany and the
Third ReichReich is a German loanword cognate with the English reign, but used most often to designate an empire, realm, or nation. The qualitative connotation from the German is " sovereign state." It is also cognate with the Latin word and the Scandinavian rike/rige, , , ; as found in bishopric...
are the common English names for
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , popularly known as the Nazi Party...
and the National Socialist German Worker's Party (NSDAP). The name Third Reich (
Drittes Reich, "Third Reich") refers to the state as the successor to the
Holy Roman EmpireThe Holy Roman Empire was a union of territories in Central Europe during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period under a Holy Roman Emperor. The first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was Otto I, crowned in 962. The last was Francis II, who abdicated and dissolved the Empire in 1806 during...
of the
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages of European history is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through 16th centuries. More specific starting and ending points are sometimes adopted by scholars to suit their respective specializations or current focus...
and the
German EmpireThe German Empire is the name commonly used in English to describe Germany from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871 to 1918, when it became a German republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of Wilhelm II .The term Second Reich...
of 1871–1918. In
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
, the state was known as
Deutsches Reich (German Reich) until 1943, when its official name became
Großdeutsches Reich (Greater German Reich).
On 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed
Chancellor of GermanyThe office of Chancellor of Germany is, under the German 1949 constitution, the head of government of Germany. It is historically a continuation of the office of Chancellor that was originally established as the office of Chancellor of the North German Confederation in 1867...
. Although he initially headed a
coalition governmentA coalition government is a cabinet of a parliamentary government in which several parties cooperate. The usual reason given for this arrangement is that no party on its own can achieve a majority in the parliament...
, he quickly eliminated his government partners. At this time Germany's borders were still determined by the
Treaty of VersaillesThe Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
, the peace treaty between Germany and the allied powers of the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
,
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
,
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
,
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
, and
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
at the end of the First World War. To the north, Germany was bounded by the
North SeaThe North Sea is a marginal, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf. The Dover Strait and the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Sea in the north connect it to the Atlantic Ocean. It is more than long and wide, with an area of around...
,
DenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries; southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and it is bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea...
, and the
Baltic SeaThe Baltic Sea is a brackish inland sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and the...
; to the east, it was divided into two and bordered
LithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of...
, The
Free City of DanzigThe Free City of Danzig was a semi-autonomous, Baltic Sea port and city-state that was created on 10 January 1920, against the wishes of the local population but in accordance with the terms of Part III, Section XI of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919...
,
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and
CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
; to the south, it bordered
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
and
SwitzerlandSwitzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 states named cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities...
and to the west, it touched France,
LuxembourgLuxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a small, landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany...
, Belgium, the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
, the
RhinelandThe Rhineland is the general name for the land on both sides of the river Rhine in the west of Germany. After the collapse of the French Empire in the early 19th century, the German and Dutch speaking regions at the middle and lower course of the Rhine were annexed to the kingdom of Prussia...
and
SaarlandThe Territory of the Saar Basin , also referred as the Saar or Saargebiet, was a region of Germany that was occupied and governed by Britain and France from 1920 to 1935 under a League of Nations mandate, with the occupation originally being under the auspices of the Treaty of Versailles...
. These borders changed after Germany regained control of the Rhineland, Saarland and the Memelland and annexed Austria, the
SudetenlandSudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia.The name is derived from the...
and Bohemia and Moravia. Germany expanded into Greater Germany during the Second World War, which began in 1939 after Germany invaded Poland, triggering the United Kingdom and France to declare war on Germany.
Germany conquered and occupied most of
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
and Northern Africa during the Second World War. Millions of
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
s and other minorities were persecuted and killed, particularly during the Second World War, amidst the Holocaust. Despite an alliance with other nations, mainly Italy and Japan, that together formed the
Axis powersThe Axis powers comprised the countries that were opposed to the Allies during World War II. The three major Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—were part of a military alliance on the signing of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, which officially founded the Axis powers...
, by 1945, Germany had
lost the warThe final battles of the European Theatre of World War II as well as the German surrender took place in late April and early May 1945.- Timeline of surrenders and deaths :...
and
ceased to exist Debellatio designates the end of a war caused by complete destruction of a hostile state....
. It was subsequently occupied after the war by the victorious allied powers of the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
, United Kingdom, United States, and France.
History
The Third Reich arose in the wake of the national
shameShame is, variously, an affect, emotion, cognition, state, or condition. The roots of the word shame are thought to derive from an older word meaning to cover; as such, covering oneself, literally or figuratively, is a natural expression of shame....
,
embarrassmentEmbarrassment is an emotional state experienced upon having a socially or professionally unacceptable act or condition witnessed by or revealed to others. Usually some amount of loss of honour or dignity is involved, but how much and the type depends on the embarrassing situation. It is similar to...
,
angerAnger is an emotion. The physical effects of anger include increased heart rate, blood pressure, and levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline. Some view anger as part of the fight or flight brain response to the perceived threat of harm...
and
resentmentResentment is the experience of a negative emotion felt as a result of a real or imagined wrong done. Etymologically, the word originates from French "ressentir", re-, intensive prefix, and sentir "to feel"; from the Latin "sentire". The English word has become synonymous with anger, spite, and...
which resulted from the
Treaty of VersaillesThe Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of...
. Versailles, a harsh treaty essentially dictated to the vanquished Germans after a brutal war, provided for:
- Germany's acceptance of and admission to sole responsibility for causing World War I
- the permanent forfeiture of various German territories and the demilitarization of other German territory
- the payment by Germany of heavy reparations, in money and in kind, such payments being justified in the Allied view by the War Guilt clause
- unilateral German disarmament and severe military restrictions
Other conditions fostering the rise of the Third Reich include nationalism and
Pan-GermanismPan-Germanism was a political movement of the 19th century aiming for unity of the German-speaking populations of Europe, identified as Volksdeutsche .- Origins :...
, civil unrest attributed to Marxist groups, the worldwide economic depression of the 1930s (spurred by the stock market crash in the US), the reaction against the counter-traditionalism and liberalism of the
WeimarThe Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government, named after Weimar, the place where the constitutional assembly took place. Its official name was still Deutsches Reich , however...
period, and the rise of
communismCommunism is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. Karl Marx posited that communism would be the final stage in human...
in Germany, as reflected by the growth of the KPD, the
Communist Party of GermanyThe Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period...
. Many voters, seeking an outlet for their frustrations and an expression for their repudiation of parliamentary democracy which seemed incapable of keeping a government in power for more than a few months, began turning their support towards the far right and far left of the political spectrum, opting for extremist political parties such as the Nazi Party. The Nazis offered promises of strong authoritarian government in lieu of effete parliamentary republicanism, civil peace, radical changes to economic policy (including elimination of unemployment), restored national pride (principally through the repudiation of Versailles) and racial cleansing, implemented in part by active suppression of Jews and Marxists, all under the banner of national unity and solidarity in lieu of the partisan divisiveness of democracy and the class divisiveness of Marxism. The Nazis (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP, National Socialist German Workers' Party) promised national and cultural renewal based on volkisch
traditionThe word tradition comes from the Latin traditionem, acc. of traditio which means "handing over, passing on", and is used in a number of ways in the English language:...
alism, and it proposed military rearmament, repudiation of reparations and reclamation of forfeited territory in opposition to the Treaty of Versailles; the party claimed that through Versailles and the
liberal democracyLiberal democracy is the dominant form of democracy in the 21st century. During the Cold War, liberal democracies were contrasted with the Communist People's Republics or "Popular Democracies", which claimed an alternative conception of democracy...
of the Weimar Republic, Germany's national pride had, by the inspiration and conniving of the Jews, been deviously surrendered by the wicked and traitorous "November criminals," whose goal was to subvert and poison the German blood.
[5]. The Nazis also endorsed the
DolchstoßlegendeThe Stab-in-the-Back Legend was a social theory popular in Germany in the period after World War I and before World War II, which attributed Germany's losing the war not to its inability to continue fighting, but to the public's failure to respond to its "patriotic calling" and the intentional...
("Stab in the back legend") which figured prominently in their propaganda as it did in propaganda of most other nationalist-leaning parties in Germany.
From 1925 to the 1930s, the German government evolved from a democracy to a de facto
conservative-nationalist authoritarian state under President and war hero Paul von HindenburgPaul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg , known universally as Paul von Hindenburg was a German field marshal and statesman....
, who opposed the liberal democratic nature of the Weimar RepublicThe Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government, named after Weimar, the place where the constitutional assembly took place. Its official name was still Deutsches Reich , however...
and wanted to find a way to make Germany into an authoritarian state. The natural ally of the foundation of an authoritarian state had been the German National People's PartyThe German National People's Party was a national-conservative party in Germany during the time of the Weimar Republic.-History:The party was formed in 1918 by a merger of the German Conservative Party, the Free Conservative Party and a section of the National Liberal Party of the old monarchic...
(the Deutschnationale Volkspartei, DNVP or "the Nationalists"), but increasingly, after 1929, more radical and younger-generation nationalists were attracted to the revolutionary nature of the National Socialist party, to challenge the rising support for communism as the German economy floundered. In addition, the middle class parties lost support as the German electorate polarized around the left and right wings, thus making majority government in a parliamentary system even more difficult.
In the elections of 1928, when economic conditions had improved following the end of the hyperinflation of 1922–23, the Nazis gained a meager 12 seats. In 1930, months after the US stock market crash, they won an astonishing 107 seats, going from a splinter group that ranked ninth in the Reichstag to the second-largest parliamentary party. After the July elections of 1932, the Nazis were the largest party in the
ReichstagThe Reichstag was the parliament of the Holy Roman Empire, and subsequently of the North German Confederation, and of Germany until 1945...
, with 230 seats. Hindenburg was reluctant to give any substantial power to Hitler, but former chancellor
Franz von Papen' was a German nobleman, Roman Catholic monarchist politician, General Staff officer, and diplomat, who served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933-1934...
and Hitler worked out an alliance between the Nazis and the DNVP which would allow Hitler to assume the chancellorship subject to the control of the traditional conservatives and for Hindenburg to accordingly develop an authoritarian state. Hitler consistently demanded to be appointed chancellor in order for Hindenburg to receive any Nazi Party support of the cabinets appointed under his authority.
On 30 January 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed
chancellor of Germany by Hindenburg after attempts by General
Kurt von Schleicher' was a German general and the last Chancellor of Germany during the era of the Weimar Republic.-Biography:...
to form a viable government failed (the
MachtergreifungMachtergreifung is a German word meaning "seizure of power". It is normally used specifically to refer to the Nazi takeover of power in Weimar Germany on January 30 1933. This is the day Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany....
). Von Schleicher was hoping he could control Hitler by becoming vice chancellor and also keeping the Nazis a minority in the cabinet. Hindenburg was put under pressure by Hitler through his son
Oskar von HindenburgGeneralleutnant Oskar von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg was the politically powerful son and aide-de-camp to Field Marshal and President of Germany Paul von Hindenburg....
, as well as intrigue from former Chancellor
Franz von Papen' was a German nobleman, Roman Catholic monarchist politician, General Staff officer, and diplomat, who served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933-1934...
, leader of the Catholic Centre Party, whose politics were dictated in part by his desire to combat communism. Even though the Nazis had gained the largest share of the popular vote in the two
ReichstagThe Reichstag was the parliament of the Holy Roman Empire, and subsequently of the North German Confederation, and of Germany until 1945...
general elections of 1932, they had no majority of their own, and just a slim majority in parliament with their Papen-proposed Nationalist DNVP-NSDAP coalition. This coalition ruled through accepted continuance of the Presidential decree, issued under Article 48 of the 1919 Weimar constitution.
The National Socialist treatment of the Jews in the early months of 1933 marked the first step in a longer-term process of removing them from German society. This plan was at the core of
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , popularly known as the Nazi Party...
's "cultural revolution".
Consolidation of power
The new government installed a totalitarian
dictatorshipA dictatorship is defined as an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator, without hereditary ascension. It has three possible meanings:...
in a series of measures in quick succession (see the article on Nazi forced coordination or
GleichschaltungGleichschaltung , meaning "coordination", "making the same", "bringing into line", is a Nazi term for the process by which the Nazi regime successively established a system of totalitarian control over the individual, and tight coordination over all aspects of society and commerce. The historian...
for details).
On the night of 27 February 1933 the
Reichstag building was set on fireThe Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on 27 February 1933. The event is seen as pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany....
and Dutch council communist
Marinus van der LubbeMarinus van der Lubbe was a Dutch council communist accused of, and eventually executed for, setting fire to the German Reichstag building on February 27, 1933, an event known as the Reichstag fire. He was posthumously pardoned in 2008.-Biography:Marinus van der Lubbe was born in Leiden in the...
was found inside the building. He was arrested and charged with starting the blaze. The event had an immediate effect on thousands of anarchists, socialists and communists throughout the Reich, many of whom were sent to the
Dachau concentration campDachau concentration camp was the first Nazi concentration camp opened in Germany, located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory near the medieval town of Dachau, about 16 km northwest of Munich in the state of Bavaria which is located in southern Germany.Opened in March 1933, it...
. The unnerved public worried that the fire had been a signal meant to initiate the communist revolution, and the Nazis found the event to be of immeasurable value in getting rid of potential insurgents. The event was quickly followed by the
Reichstag Fire DecreeThe Reichstag Fire Decree is the common name of the Order of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State issued by German President Paul von Hindenburg in direct response to the Reichstag fire of February 27, 1933. The decree nullified many of the key civil liberties of German...
, rescinding
habeas corpusHabeas corpus is a legal action, or writ, through which a person can seek relief from the unlawful detention of him or herself, or of another person. It protects the individual from harming him or herself, or from being harmed by the judicial system...
and other civil liberties.
The Enabling Act was passed in March 1933, with 444 votes, to the 94 of the remaining Social Democrats. The act gave the government (and thus effectively the Nazi Party) legislative powers and also authorized it to deviate from the provisions of the constitution for four years. In effect, Hitler had seized dictatorial powers.
Over the next year, the National Socialist Party ruthlessly eliminated all opposition. The Communists had already been banned before the passage of the Enabling Act. The Social Democrats (SPD), despite efforts to appease Hitler, were banned in June. In June and July, the Nationalists (DNVP), People's Party (DVP) and State Party (DStP) were forced to disband. The remaining Catholic Centre Party, at Papen's urging, disbanded itself on 5 July 1933 after guarantees over Catholic education and youth groups. On 14 July 1933 Germany was officially declared a one-party state.
Symbols of the Weimar Republic, including the black-red-gold flag (now the present-day
flag of GermanyThe flag of Germany is a tricolour consisting of three equal horizontal bands displaying the national colours of Germany: black, red and gold....
), were abolished by the new regime which adopted both new and old imperial symbolism to represent the dual nature of the imperialist-Nazi regime of 1933. The old imperial black-white-red tricolour, almost completely abandoned during the Weimar Republic, was restored as one of Germany's two officially legal national flags. The other official national flag was the swastika flag of the Nazi party. It became the sole national flag in 1935. The national anthem continued to be "Deutschland über Alles" (also known as the "Deutschlandlied") except that the Nazis customarily used just the first verse and appended to it the "
Horst-Wessel-LiedThe Horst-Wessel-Lied , also known as Die Fahne hoch from its opening line, was the anthem of the Nazi Party from 1930 to 1945...
" accompanied by the so-called
Hitler saluteThe Hitler salute , also known in Germany during World War II as the Deutscher Gruß or Hitler Greeting, or in English as the Nazi salute, is a variant of the Roman salute, adopted by the Nazi Party to indicate loyalty and subservience to the party's leader Adolf Hitler...
.
Further consolidation of power was achieved on 30 January 1934 with the Gesetz über den Neuaufbau des Reichs (Act to rebuild the Reich). The act changed the highly decentralized federal Germany of the Weimar era into a centralized state. It disbanded state parliaments, transferring sovereign rights of the states to the Reich central government and put the state administrations under the control of the Reich administration. This process had actually begun soon after the passage of the Enabling Act, when all state governments were thrown out of office and replaced by Reich governors . Further laws ended any autonomy in local government. Mayors of cities and towns with less than 100,000 people were appointed by the governors, while the Interior Minister appointed the mayors of all cities with more than 100,000 people. In the case of Berlin and
HamburgHamburg is the second-largest city in Germany and the sixth-largest city in the European Union...
(and after 1938,
ViennaVienna is the capital of the Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 10th largest city by...
), Hitler reserved the right to personally appoint the mayors.
In the spring of 1934, only the army remained independent from Nazi control. The German Army had traditionally been separated from the government and somewhat of an entity of its own. The Nazi paramilitary
SAThe , abbreviated SA , functioned as a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party...
expected top positions in the new power structure. The Reichswehr feared Röhm's ambition to absorb the army into the SA under his own leadership. Röhm also aimed to launch the socialist "second revolution" to complement the nationalist revolution which had occurred with the ascendance of Hitler. Röhm and leaders of the SA wanted the regime to follow through its promise of enacting socialist legislation for Aryan Germans.
Wanting to preserve good relations with the army, certain politicians and the major industries (who were weary of more political violence erupting from the SA), Hitler initiated the violent "
Night of the Long KnivesThe Night of the Long Knives or "Operation Hummingbird", was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany between June 30 and July 2, 1934, when the Nazi regime carried out a series of political executions, most of those killed being members of the Sturmabteilung , the paramilitary Brownshirts.Hitler...
" on 30 June 1934. This was a purge of the leadership ranks of Röhm's SA as well as hard-left Nazis (Strasserists), and other political enemies, carried out by the
SSThe , abbreviated SS- or - was a major Nazi organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The SS grew from a small paramilitary unit to a powerful force that served as the Führer's "Praetorian Guard," the Nazi Party's "Shield Squadron" and a force that, fielding almost a million men ,...
and the Gestapo.
At Hindenburg's death on 2 August 1934 the Nazi-controlled Reichstag merged the offices of Reichspräsident
and Reichskanzler
and reinstalled Hitler with the new title FührerThe word Führer is 'leader' or 'guide' in the German language, derived from the verb , a cognate of the Old English words faran and fær and the Modern English words derived from the older terms such as now mostly used in compounds such as wayfarer and sea-faring...
und Reichskanzler. Until the death of Hindenburg, the army did not follow Hitler, partly because the paramilitary
SAThe , abbreviated SA , functioned as a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party...
was much larger than the German Army (limited to 100,000 by the Treaty of Versailles) and because the leaders of the SA sought to merge the army into itself and to launch the socialist "second revolution." The murder of
Ernst RöhmErnst Julius Röhm, was an Imperial German army officer and later a Nazi leader. He was a co-founder of the Sturmabteilung , the Nazi Party militia and later was the SA commander. In 1934, he was executed on Hitler's orders as a potential rival.-Early career:Ernst Röhm was born in Munich...
and the leadership of the SA, assured the army of its position. Hitler further promised expansions of the German military which brought friendlier relations between him and the Reichswehr. The death of Hindenburg brought the requirement of all soldiers' to take an oath of allegiance to obey Hitler alone and not the Reich or constitution of Germany.
The Nazis thereafter proceeded to scrap their official alliance with the conservative nationalists and began to introduce Nazi ideology and Nazi symbolism into all major aspects of life in Germany. Schoolbooks were either rewritten or replaced and schoolteachers who did not support Nazification of the curriculum were fired.
The inception of the
GestapoThe was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning in April 1934, it was under the overall administration of the Schutzstaffel under Heinrich Himmler in his position as leader of the SS and Chief of German Police...
, police acting outside of any civil authority, highlighted the Nazis' intention to use powerful, coercive means to directly control German society. An army, estimated to be of about 100,000, spies and informants operated throughout Germany, reporting to Nazi officials the activities of any critics or dissenters. Most ordinary Germans, happy with the improving economy and better standard of living, remained obedient and quiet, but many political opponents, especially communists and Marxist or international socialists, were reported by omnipresent eavesdropping spies and put in prison camps where many were tortured and killed. It is estimated that tens of thousands of political victims died or disappeared in the first few years of Nazi rule.
"Between 1933 and 1945 more than 3 million Germans had been in concentration camps or prison for political reasons" "Tens of thousands of Germans were killed for one or another form of resistance. Between 1933 and 1945
Special CourtsSpecial Courts were the underground courts organized by the Polish Government in Exile during World War II in occupied Poland...
killed 12,000 Germans, courts martial killed 25,000 German soldiers, and 'regular' justice killed 40,000 Germans. Many of these Germans were part of the government civil or military service, a circumstance which enabled them to engage in subversion and conspiracy while involved, marginally or significantly, in the government's policies."
World War II
Conquest of Europe
The "Danzig crisis" peaked in early 1939, around the time that reports of controversy in the
Free City of DanzigThe Free City of Danzig was a semi-autonomous, Baltic Sea port and city-state that was created on 10 January 1920, against the wishes of the local population but in accordance with the terms of Part III, Section XI of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919...
increased, the United Kingdom "guaranteed" to defend Poland's territorial integrity and the Poles rejected a series of offers by Nazi Germany regarding both the
Free City of DanzigThe Free City of Danzig was a semi-autonomous, Baltic Sea port and city-state that was created on 10 January 1920, against the wishes of the local population but in accordance with the terms of Part III, Section XI of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919...
and the
Polish CorridorThe Polish Corridor was a territory located in the region of Pomerelia which provided the Second Republic of Poland with access to the Baltic Sea, thus dividing the bulk of Germany from her province of East Prussia...
. Then, the Germans broke off diplomatic relations. Hitler had learned that the Soviet Union was willing to sign a
non-aggression pactThe Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, colloquially named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and signed in...
with Germany and would support an attack on Poland.
Germany invaded PolandThe Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II...
on 1 September 1939 and two days later, the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
and
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
declared war on Germany.
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
was underway, but Poland fell quickly, especially after the Soviets attacked Poland on 17 September. The United Kingdom proceeded to bomb
Wilhelmshaven||-||}Wilhelmshaven is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of Jadebusen, a bay of the North Sea.-History:...
,
CuxhavenCuxhaven is an independent town and seat of the Cuxhaven district, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the shore of the North Sea at the mouth of the Elbe River. Cuxhaven has a footprint of 14 km by 7 km...
,
HeligolandHeligoland is a small German archipelago in the North Sea.Formerly Danish and British possessions, the islands are located in the Heligoland Bight in the southeastern corner of the North Sea...
and other areas. Still, aside from battles at sea, no other activity occurred. Thus, the war became known as "the Phony War".
The year 1940 began with little more than the UK dropping propaganda leaflets over
PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Nicknames for Prague have included "the mother of cities" , "city of a hundred spires", or Stověžatá Praha in Czech and "the golden city" or Zlaté město in Czech.Situated on the River Vltava in central Bohemia, Prague has been the...
and
ViennaVienna is the capital of the Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 10th largest city by...
but a German attack on the British High Seas fleet was followed by the British bombing the port city of
SyltSylt is an island in northern Germany, part of Nordfriesland district, Schleswig-Holstein and well known for the distinctive shape of its shoreline. It belongs to the North Frisian Islands and is the largest island in North Frisia...
. After the
Altmark IncidentThe Altmark Incident was a naval skirmish of World War II between the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany, which happened on 16 February 1940. It took place in what were, at that time, neutral Norwegian waters...
off the coast of Norway and the discovery of the United Kingdom's plans to encircle Germany, Hitler sent troops into Denmark and
NorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a country in Northern Europe occupying the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, as well as Jan Mayen and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard under the Spitsbergen Treaty...
. This safeguarded iron ore supplies from
SwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe...
through coastal waters. Shortly thereafter, the British and French landed in
Mid-Central Norway is an administrative division that includes the counties of Nord-Trøndelag, Sør-Trøndelag and Møre og Romsdal and is used by, for example, the Regional Health Authorities and the Norwegian Public Roads Administration. Compared to the traditional regions of Norway it covers all of...
and North Norway, but the Germans de facto defeated these forces in the ensuing
Norwegian campaignThe Norwegian Campaign was the name used by the Allies United Kingdom and France for their first direct land confrontation with the military forces of Nazi Germany in World War II. The conflict occurred in Norway between 9 April and 10 June 1940, making Norway the nation - aside from the Soviet...
.
In May 1940, the Phony War ended. Against the will of his advisors, Hitler ordered an attack on France through the
Low CountriesThe Low Countries, the historical region of de Nederlanden, are the countries on low-lying land around the delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers...
. The
Battle of FranceIn World War II, the Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, executed from 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations...
ended with an overwhelming German victory. However, with the British refusing Hitler's offer of peace, the war continued on. Germany and Britain continued to fight at sea and in the air. However, on August 24, two off-course German bombers accidentally bombed London – against Hitler's orders, changing the course of the war. In response to the attack, the British bombed
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
, which sent Hitler in a rage. The German leader ordered attacks on British cities, and the UK was bombed heavily during
The BlitzThe Blitz was the sustained bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, in World War II. While the Blitz hit many towns and cities across the country, it began with the bombing of London for 57 consecutive nights...
.
Hitler hoped to break British morale and win peace. However, the British refused to back down; eventually, Hitler called off the
Battle of BritainThe Battle of Britain is the name given to the air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940. The objective of the campaign was to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force , especially Fighter Command...
strategic bombing campaignStrategic bombing during World War II is a term which refers to all aerial bombardment of a strategic nature, which took place between 1939 and 1945, involving any nations engaged in World War II...
in favor of the long-planned invasion of the Soviet Union:
Operation BarbarossaOperation Barbarossa was the code name for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a 2,900 km front...
. Germany and its allies invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. On the eve of the invasion, Hitler's former deputy,
Rudolf HessRudolf Walter Richard Hess was a prominent figure in Nazi Germany, acting as Adolf Hitler's Deputy in the Nazi Party. On the eve of war with the Soviet Union, he flew solo to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate peace with the United Kingdom, but instead was arrested...
, attempted to negotiate terms of peace with the United Kingdom in an unofficial private meeting after crash-landing in Scotland. By contrast, Hitler had hoped that rapid success in the Soviet Union would bring Britain to the negotiating table.
Operation Barbarossa was supposed to begin earlier than it did; however, failed Italian ventures in
North AfricaNorth Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa.Geopolitically, the UN definition of Northern Africa includes the following seven countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia,Mauritania, and...
and the
BalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
concerned Hitler. In February 1941, the German
Afrika KorpsThe German Afrika Korps was the German expeditionary force in Libya and Tunisia during the North African Campaign of World War II...
was sent to Libya to aid the Italians and hold the British Commonwealth forces from British-held Egypt. As the
North African CampaignDuring the Second World War, the North African Campaign took place in North Africa from 10 June 1940 to 16 May 1943. It included campaigns fought in the Libyan and Egyptian deserts and in Morocco and Algeria and Tunisia .The campaign was fought between the Allies and Axis powers...
continued, in spite of orders to remain on the defensive, the Afrika Korps regained lost Italian territory, pushed the British back across the desert and advanced into Egypt. In April, the Germans launched the
invasion of YugoslaviaThe Invasion of Yugoslavia , also known as the April War , was the Axis Powers' attack on Kingdom of Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941 during World War II...
to aid friendly forces and restore order in the midst of what was believed to be a British-supported coup. This was followed by the
Battle of GreeceThe Battle of Greece was a World War II battle that occurred on the Greek mainland and in southern Albania. The battle was fought between the Allied and Axis forces...
, again to bail out the Italians, and the
Battle of CreteThe Battle of Crete was a battle during World War II on the Greek island of Crete. The battle began on the morning of 20 May 1941, when Nazi Germany launched an airborne invasion of Crete under the code-name Unternehmen Merkur Greek and Allied forces along with Cretan civilians defended the...
. Because of the diversions in North Africa and the Balkans, the Germans were not able to launch Barbarossa until late in June. Moreover, men and material were diverted to create the "fortified Europe" that Hitler wanted before Germany focused its attention on the East.
Nevertheless, Barbarossa began with great success. Only Hitler worried that the German Army and its allies were not advancing into the Soviet Union fast enough. By December 1941, the Germans and their allies were at the gates of
MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
; to the north, troops had reached
LeningradThe Siege of Leningrad, also known as The Leningrad Blockade was an unsuccessful military operation by the Axis powers to capture Leningrad during World War II. The siege started at 8 September 1941, when the last land connection to the city was severed...
and surrounded the city. Meanwhile, Germany and her allies controlled almost all of mainland Europe, with the exception of neutral
SwitzerlandSwitzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 states named cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities...
,
SwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe...
, Spain,
PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east...
,
LiechtensteinThe Principality of Liechtenstein is a doubly landlocked alpine microstate in Western Europe, bordered by Switzerland to the west and south and by Austria to the east. Its area is just over 160 km² and it has an estimated population of 35,000...
,
AndorraAndorra , officially the Principality of Andorra , also called the Principality of the Valleys of Andorra, is a small landlocked country in southwestern Europe, located in the eastern Pyrenees mountains and bordered by Spain and France. It is the sixth smallest nation in Europe having an area of ...
,
Vatican CityVatican City , officially the State of the Vatican City , is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, the capital city of Italy...
and
MonacoMonaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a small sovereign city-state located in South Western Europe on the northern central coast of the Mediterranean Sea, having a land border on three sides only with France, and being about away from Italy. Its size is just under 2 km² with an...
.
On 11 December 1941, four days after the Japanese bombed
Pearl HarborPearl Harbor is a harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
, Nazi Germany declared war on the United States. Not only was this a chance for Germany to strengthen its ties with Japan, but after months of anti-German hysteria in the American media and
Lend-LeaseLend-Lease was the name of the program under which the United States of America supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, France and other Allied nations with vast amounts of war material between 1941 and 1945 in return for, in the case of Britain, military bases in Newfoundland,...
aid to Britain, the leaking of Rainbow Five and the foreboding content of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Pearl Harbor speech made it clear to Hitler that the US could not be kept neutral. Moreover, Germany's policy of
appeasementAppeasement is "the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and compromise, thereby avoiding the resort to an armed conflict which would be expensive, bloody, and possibly dangerous." The term is most often applied to the foreign...
towards the US, designed to keep the US out of the war, was a burden to Germany's war effort. Germany had refrained from attacking American convoys, even if they were bound for the United Kingdom or the Soviet Union. By contrast, after Germany declared war on the US, the German navy began
unrestricted submarine warfareUnrestricted submarine warfare is a type of naval warfare in which submarines sink merchant ships without warning, as opposed to attacks per prize rules...
, using U-Boats to attack ships without warning.
The goal of Germany's navy, the
KriegsmarineThe Kriegsmarine was the name of the German Navy between 1935 and 1945, during the Nazi regime, superseding the Reichsmarine, and the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the Wehrmacht.-Command structure:Adolf Hitler was the commander-in-chief...
, was to cut off Britain's supply line. Under these circumstances, one of the most famous naval battles in history took place, with the German battleship Bismarck
The German battleship Bismarck is one of the most famous warships of the Second World War. The lead ship of her class and named after the 19th century German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Bismarck displaced more than 50,000 tonnes fully loaded and was the largest warship then commissioned.Bismarck...
, Germany's largest and most powerful warship, attempting to break out into the Atlantic and raid supply ships heading for Britain. The Bismarck
was sunk – but not before sending Britain's largest warship, the battlecruiser Hood
HMS Hood was a battlecruiser of the Royal Navy, and considered the pride of the Royal Navy in the interwar period and during the early period of World War II...
, to the depths of the ocean. German U-Boats were more successful than surface raiders like the Bismarck. However, Germany failed to make submarine production a top priority early on and by the time it did, the British and their allies were developing the technology and strategies to neutralize it. Furthermore, in spite of the submarine's early success in 1941 and 1942, material shortages in Britain failed to fall to their World War I levels. The Allied victory in the Battle of the Atlantic was achieved at a huge cost: between 1939 and 1945, 3,500 Allied ships were sunk (gross tonnage 14.5 million) at a cost of 783 German U-Boats.
Persecution and extermination campaigns
The persecution of minorities and "undesirables" continued both in Germany and the occupied countries. From 1941 onward, Jews were required to wear a
yellow badgeThe yellow badge , also referred to as a Jewish badge, was a cloth patch that Jews were ordered to sew on their outer garments in order to mark them as Jews in public. It is intended to be a badge of shame associated with antisemitism...
in public and most were transferred to ghettos, where they remained isolated from the rest of the population. In January 1942, at the
Wannsee ConferenceThe Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior officials of the Nazi German regime, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The purpose of the conference was to inform administrative leaders of Departments responsible for various policies relating to Jews, that Reinhard Heydrich...
and under the supervision of
Reinhard HeydrichReinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was an SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia...
, who himself was commanded by
Heinrich HimmlerHeinrich Luitpold Himmler , one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany, served as Chief of the German Police and Minister of the Interior...
, a plan for the "
Final SolutionThe Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the final, most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
of the Jewish Question" (Endlösung der Judenfrage
) in Europe was designed. From then until the end of the war some six million Jews and many others, including homosexuals, Slavs, and political prisoners, were systematically killed. In addition, more than ten million people were put into forced labour. This genocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of...
is called the HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
in English and the Shoah
in HebrewHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over...
. Thousands were shipped daily to extermination camps and concentration camps.
Parallel to the Holocaust, the Nazis conducted a ruthless program of conquest and exploitation in the captured SovietThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
and PolishPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
territories and their populations as part of their Generalplan OstGeneralplan Ost was a secret Nazi plan of genocide and ethnic cleansing to be realised in the territories occupied by Germany in Eastern Europe during World War II...
. According to estimates, 20 million Soviet civilians, three million non-Jewish Poles, and seven million Red ArmyThe Red Army The Red Army The Red Army was the Soviet government’s revolutionary militia beginning in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the USSR. Since 1946, after the Second World War, it was called the Soviet Army.The 'Red...
soldiers died because of the Nazis. The Nazis' plan was to extend German Lebensraumserved as a major motivation for Nazi Germany's territorial aggression, was a reinterpretation of the by then century-old concept of Drang nach Osten...
("living space") eastward, a foreseen consequence of the war in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, said by the Nazis to have been waged in order "to defend Western Civilization against Bolshevism of subhumans". It is estimated that at least 51 million Slavic people were to be removed from Central and Eastern Europe in the event of Nazi victory. Because of the many atrocities suffered under Stalin, many Ukrainians, Balts, and other nationalities fought on the side of the Germans. People in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union who fulfilled the basic racial classifications of the Aryan race or had no immediate Jewish ancestry avoided persecution and were allowed to enlist in the
Waffen SchutzstaffelThe Waffen-SS was the combat arm of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside the Wehrmacht Heer regular army, but was never formally part of it...
(Waffen-SS) divisions. The Nazi regime intended to eventually "Germanize" the racially-acceptable peoples of the occupied east.
Allied victory
In early 1942, the Soviet
Red ArmyThe Red Army The Red Army The Red Army was the Soviet government’s revolutionary militia beginning in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the USSR. Since 1946, after the Second World War, it was called the Soviet Army.The 'Red...
counterattacked and by the end of the winter, the Germans were no longer outside of Moscow. However, the Germans and their allies held a strong line and in the spring, they launched a new major offensive, driving towards the oil-rich Caucasus and the Volga River in Southern Russia. This set the stage for the showdown at
StalingradThe Battle of Stalingrad was a battle of World War II between Nazi Germany and its allies and the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad in southwestern Russia. The battle took place between 17 July 1942 and 2 February 1943....
, where Germany and its allies eventually suffered a major defeat. After winning a major tank battle at
KurskKursk is a city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur, Tuskar, and Seym Rivers. Kursk was a key turning point of the Russian-German war during World War II and the site of the largest tank battle in World War II...
-Orel in July 1943, the Soviets began a long push west, and the Germans and their allies never regained the initiative.
In Africa, the Afrika Korps failed to break through the line at
El AlameinThe First Battle of El Alamein 1–27 July 1942 was a battle of the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War, fought between Axis forces commanded by Erwin Rommel, and Allied forces commanded by Claude Auchinleck...
. This affected – and was affected by – the events in Stalingrad. In November 1942, the Germans and the Italians had to retreat back to Tunisia, where they
engaged American and British forcesThe Tunisia Campaign was a series of World War II battles that took place in Tunisia in the North African Campaign of World War II, between Axis and Allied forces. The Allies consisted primarily of British Imperial Forces along with American and the French Army...
that had landed in French North Africa. After initial victories, the German and Italian forces were overcome by man and material shortages. The Allies invaded Sicily and Italy next, but met fierce resistance, particularly at
AnzioOperation Shingle , during the Italian Campaign of World War II, was an Allied amphibious landing against Axis forces in the area of Anzio and Nettuno, Italy. The operation was commanded by Major General John P. Lucas and was intended to outflank German forces of the Winter Line and enable an...
and
CassinoThe Battle of Monte Cassino was a costly series of four battles during World War II, fought by the Allies with the intention of breaking through the Winter Line and seizing Rome.In the beginning of 1944, the western half of the Winter Line was being anchored by Germans holding the Rapido, Liri and...
, and the campaign continued from mid-1943 to nearly the end of the war.
By February 1944, with the success of Operation Bagration, the Soviet Red Army had crossed into Poland. As the Red Army neared
East PrussiaEast Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia...
, German civilians began to flee from East Prussia,
West PrussiaWest Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773–1824 and 1878–1919/20 which was created out of the earlier Polish province of Royal Prussia...
and
SilesiaSilesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in present-day Poland, with parts in the Czech Republic and Germany....
en masse, fearing persecution and atrocities by Soviet soldiers, which many were unable to escape from. Then, in June 1944, the American and British forces opened up another front with the
D-DayOperation Overlord was the code name for the invasion of western Europe during World War II by Allied forces. The operation began on 6 June 1944 with the Normandy Landings when an airborne assault preceded an amphibious assault...
landings in France.
From 1942 onward, Western Allied bombing raids over Germany increased. There is a great deal of controversy over Allied tactics late in the war, resulting in the complete destruction of the cities of
CologneCologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants...
and
DresdenThe Bombing of Dresden by the British Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Force between 13 February and 15 February 1945 remains one of the most controversial Allied actions of the Second World War...
, as well as others. More bombs were dropped on one day in each of these cities than the Germans dropped on Britain throughout the entire war, resulting in hundreds of thousands of civilian dead and severe hardship and shortages for the survivors living amid the destroyed infrastructure.
Millions of German soldiers died over the course of World War II, with current highest estimates at 5.5 million. The corpses of German soldiers became so commonplace that they stopped generating any emotion whatsoever and became an inextricable part of the European landscape, where they were often improperly buried or not at all.
By 1945, Soviet forces were approaching Berlin. American and British forces had taken most of western Germany and met their Soviet allies at Torgau on the Elbe on 26 April 1945 (Cohen). With Berlin under siege, Hitler and other key members of the Nazi regime were forced to live in the armoured underground
FührerbunkerThe Führerbunker was located beneath Hitler's New Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Germany...
while the upper terrain of Berlin was constantly shelled by the Red Army.
In the underground bunker Hitler grew increasingly isolated and detached from reality. Increasingly, he exhibited signs of
mental illnessA mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern that occurs in an individual and is thought to cause distress or disability that is not expected as part of normal development or culture. The recognition and understanding of mental disorders has changed over time and...
. It was claimed that, at a meeting with military commanders, Hitler began to consider committing suicide should Germany fail to win the war. Berlin was eventually surrounded and outward communications between Berlin and the rest of Germany were cut off. Despite evident total defeat, Hitler refused to relinquish his power or surrender.
With no communications coming out of Berlin,
Hermann GöringHermann Wilhelm Göring was a German politician, military leader and a leading member of the Nazi Party. Among many offices, he was Hitler's designated successor and commander of the Luftwaffe...
sent an ultimatum to Berlin that he would take over the Nazi regime in April if his ultimatum was not responded to, in which case Hitler would have been deemed to be incapacitated as leader. Upon receiving the message, Hitler angrily ordered Göring's immediate arrest, and had a plane deliver the message to Göring in
BavariaBavaria , with an area of and almost 12.5 million inhabitants, is located in the southeast of Germany and is the largest state of Germany by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
. Later, in northern Germany,
Reichsführer-SSwas a special SS rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945. Reichsführer-SS was a title from 1925 to 1933 and, after 1934, became the highest rank of the German Schutzstaffel .-Definition:...
Heinrich HimmlerHeinrich Luitpold Himmler , one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany, served as Chief of the German Police and Minister of the Interior...
began communicating with the western Allies about negotiating peace. Hitler once again reacted violently to Himmler's attempts to seek peace and ordered both his arrest and execution.
With no intent by Hitler to surrender, intense street fighting continued in the war-torn ruins of Berlin between remnant German army forces, Hitler YouthThe Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung .-Origins:The first NSDAP-related organization of German youth was the Jugendbund...
, and the Waffen-SSThe Waffen-SS was the combat arm of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside the Wehrmacht Heer regular army, but was never formally part of it...
against the Red Army. This battle was known as the
Battle of BerlinThe Battle of Berlin was the final major offensive of the European Theatre of World War II and was designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union.
[The last offensive of the European war was the Prague Offensive on 6–11 May 1945, when the Red Army, with the help...]
. The German forces by this time were severely depleted, large numbers of German children and the elderly were forced into conscription by the Nazis to fight against the Red Army in the remaining pockets of territory not controlled by the Red Army in Berlin.
Capitulation of German forces
On 30 April 1945, as the Battle for Berlin raged and the city was being overrun by Soviet forces, Hitler
committed suicideThe generally accepted cause of the death of Adolf Hitler on 30 April 1945 is suicide by gunshot and cyanide poisoning. The lack of public information concerning the whereabouts of Hitler's remains, confused reports stemming from the dual method and other circumstances surrounding the event...
in his underground bunker. Two days later, on 2 May 1945, German General
Helmuth WeidlingHelmuth Otto Ludwig Weidling was an officer in the German Army before and during World War II...
unconditionally surrendered Berlin to Soviet General
Vasily ChuikovVasily Ivanovich Chuikov was a lieutenant general in the Soviet Red Army during World War II, twice Hero of the Soviet Union , who after the war became a Marshal of the Soviet Union....
.
Hitler was succeeded by Grand Admiral
Karl DönitzKarl Dönitz was a German naval Commander who served in the Imperial German Navy during World War I, and during World War II commanded first the German submarine fleet, and then the entire German Navy .In the final days of the war, Dönitz was named by Adolf Hitler as his successor, and after the...
as Reich's President and Dr.
Joseph GoebbelsPaul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reichsminister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945...
as Reich Chancellor. No one was to replace Hitler as the Führer, which Hitler abolished in his
willThe last will and testament of Adolf Hitler was dictated by Hitler to his secretary Traudl Junge in his Berlin Führerbunker on April 29 1945, the day he and Eva Braun married. They committed suicide the next day , three days before the surrender of Berlin to the Soviets on May 2, and just over a...
. However, Goebbels committed suicide in the Fuhrerbunker a day after assuming office. The
caretaker governmentThe Flensburg government was the short-lived administration that attempted to rule Nazi Germany during most of May 1945 at the very end of World War II. The government was formed following the suicides of Nazi Führer Adolf Hitler and Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels during the Battle of Berlin...
Dönitz established near the Danish border unsuccessfully sought a separate peace with the Western Allies. On 4–8 May 1945 most of the remaining German armed forces throughout Europe surrendered unconditionally (
German Instrument of Surrender, 1945The German Instrument of Surrender was the legal instrument that established the armistice ending World War II in Europe. It was signed by representatives of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the Allied Expeditionary Force and Soviet High Command on May 7 and May 8, 1945. The date is known in the...
). This was the
end of World War II in EuropeThe final battles of the European Theatre of World War II as well as the German surrender took place in late April and early May 1945.- Timeline of surrenders and deaths :...
.
The war was the largest and most destructive in human history, with
60 million dead across the worldWorld War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. Over 60 million people were killed. The tables below give a detailed country-by-country count of human losses.-Total dead:...
, including between 9 and 11 million people who perished during
the HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
. The
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
lost around 27 million people during the war, about half of all World War II casualties. Towards the end of the war, Europe had more than 40 million
refugeeUnder the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee is a person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality,...
s.
With the creation of the
Allied Control CouncilThe Allied Control Council or Allied Control Authority, known in the German language as the Alliierter Kontrollrat and also referred to as the Four Powers , was a military occupation governing body of the Allied Occupation Zones in Germany after the end of World War II in Europe...
on 5 July 1945, the four Allied powers "assume[d] supreme authority with respect to Germany" (Declaration Regarding the Defeat of Germany, U.S. Department of State, Treaties and Other International Acts Series, No. 1520).
The end of the Third Reich
The
Potsdam ConferenceThe Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States...
in August 1945 created arrangements and outline for new government for the post-war Germany as well as
war reparationsWar reparations refers to the monetary compensation intended to cover damage or injury during a war. Generally, the term war reparations refers to money or goods changing hands, rather than such property transfers as the annexation of land....
and resettlement. All German annexations in Europe after 1937, such as the
SudetenlandSudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia.The name is derived from the...
, were reversed, and in addition subject to a peace settlement Germany's eastern border was shifted westwards to the
Oder-Neisse lineThe Oder-Neisse line was drawn in the aftermath of World War II as the eastern border of Germany and the western border of Poland. The line is formed primarily by the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, and meets the Baltic Sea west of the seaport cities of Szczecin and Świnoujście...
, effectively reducing Germany in size by approximately 25% compared to its 1937 border. The territories east of the new border comprised
East PrussiaEast Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia...
,
SilesiaSilesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in present-day Poland, with parts in the Czech Republic and Germany....
,
West PrussiaWest Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773–1824 and 1878–1919/20 which was created out of the earlier Polish province of Royal Prussia...
, two-thirds of
PomeraniaPomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East. It is inhabited...
and parts of
BrandenburgBrandenburg is one of the sixteen states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...
. Much of these areas were agricultural, with the exception of
Upper SilesiaUpper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia; Lower Silesia is to the northwest. Since the 9th century, Upper Silesia has been part of Greater Moravia, Bohemia, Poland, Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Prussia, and later of unified German Reich...
, which was the second-largest center of German
heavy industryHeavy industry does not have a single fixed meaning as compared to light industry. It can mean production of products which are either heavy in weight or in the processes leading to their production. In general, it is a popular term used within the name of many Japanese and Korean firms, meaning...
. Many smaller and large cities such as Stettin,
KönigsbergKönigsberg was the capital of eastern Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945. It was founded by the Teutonic Knights just south of the Sambian peninsula in the year 1255 AD during the Northern Crusades and named for King Ottokar II of Bohemia...
, Breslau,
ElbingElbląg is a city in northern Poland with 127,892 inhabitants . It is the capital of Elbląg County and has been assigned to the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship since 1999. Before then it was the capital of Elbląg Voivodeship and a county seat in Gdańsk Voivodeship...
, Danzig were cleansed of their population and taken from Germany as well.
France took control of a large part of Germany's remaining
coal depositsThe Saar Protectorate was a German borderland territory twice temporarily made a protectorate state. Since rejoining Germany in 1957, it is the smallest Federal German Area State , the Saarland...
. Virtually all Germans in
Central EuropeCentral Europe is the region lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe. The term and widespread interest in the region itself came back into fashion after the end of the Cold War, which, along with the Iron Curtain, had divided Europe politically into East and West,...
outside of the new eastern borders of Germany and Austria were subsequently, over a period of several years, expelled, affecting about 17 million ethnic Germans. Most casualty estimates of this expulsion range between one to two million dead. The French, US and British occupation zones later became
West GermanyWest Germany is a common English name for the period of the Federal Republic of Germany between its' formation in May 1949 to German reunification in October 1990, when the German Democratic Republic was dissolved and the five states on its territory joined the Federal Republic of Germany,...
(the Federal Republic of Germany), while the Soviet zone became the communist East Germany (the German Democratic Republic, excluding sections of Berlin).
The initial repressive occupation policy in Germany by the Western
AlliesThe Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . The involvement of the Allies in World War II was either natural and inevitable they were invaded or under the direct threat of invasion by the Axis or compelled by concerns that the Axis powers...
was reversed after a few years when the
Cold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition existing after World War II , primarily between the USSR and its satellite states, and the powers of the Western world, including the United States...
made the Germans important as allies against communism. West Germany recovered economically by the 1960s, being called the
economic miracleThe terms "economic miracle," "tiger economy" or simply "miracle" have come to refer to great periods of change, particularly periods of dramatic economic growth, in the recent histories of a number of countries:-Post-World War II:See Post-war economic boom....
(German term
WirtschaftswunderThe term describes the rapid reconstruction and development of the economies of West Germany and Austria after World War II. The expression was used by The Times in 1950...
), mainly due to the
currency reformMonetary reform describes any movement or theory that proposes a different system of supplying money and financing the economy than the current system.Monetary reformers may advocate any of the following, among other proposals:...
of 1948 which replaced the
ReichsmarkThe Reichsmark was the currency in Germany from 1924 until June 20, 1948. The Reichsmark was subdivided into 100 Reichspfennig.-History:...
with the Deutsche Mark as legal tender, halting rampant inflation, but also to a minor degree helped by economic aid (in the form of loans) through the
Marshall PlanThe Marshall Plan was the primary plan of the United States for rebuilding and creating a stronger foundation for the countries of Western Europe, and repelling communism after World War II...
which was extended to also include West Germany. West German recovery was upheld thanks to fiscal policy and intense labour, eventually leading to
labour shortagesGastarbeiter is German for "guest worker" . It refers to migrant workers who had moved to Germany mainly in the 1960s and 70s, seeking work as part of a formal guest worker programme...
.
Allied dismantling of West German industry was finally halted in 1951, and in 1952 West Germany joined the
European Coal and Steel CommunityThe European Coal and Steel Community was a six-nation international organisation serving to unify Western Europe during the Cold War and create the foundation for European democracy and the modern-day developments of the European Union...
. In 1955 the military
occupation of West GermanyThe Allied High Commission was established by the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and France after the 1948 breakdown of the Allied Control Council to regulate and supervise the development of the newly established Federal Republic of Germany The Allied High Commission (also known...
was ended. East Germany recovered at a slower pace under communism until 1990, due to reparations paid to the Soviet Union and the effects of the centrally planned economy. Germany
regained full sovereigntyThe Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany was negotiated in 1990 between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic , and the Four Powers which occupied Germany at the end of World War II in Europe: France, the United Kingdom, the United States of...
in 1991.
After the war, surviving Nazi leaders were put on trial by an Allied tribunal at
NurembergThe Nuremberg trials were a series of trials, or tribunals, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of Nazi Germany after its defeat in World War II....
for crimes against humanity. A minority were sentenced to death and executed, but a number were jailed and then released by the mid-1950s due to poor health and old age, with the notable exception of
Rudolf HessRudolf Walter Richard Hess was a prominent figure in Nazi Germany, acting as Adolf Hitler's Deputy in the Nazi Party. On the eve of war with the Soviet Union, he flew solo to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate peace with the United Kingdom, but instead was arrested...
, who died in
Spandau PrisonSpandau Prison was a prison situated in the borough of Spandau in western Berlin, constructed in 1876 and demolished in 1987 after the death of its last prisoner, Rudolf Hess, to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine. The prison was near, though not part of, the Renaissance-era Spandau Citadel...
in 1987 while in permanent solitary confinement. In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, some renewed efforts were made in West Germany to take those who were directly responsible for "crimes against humanity" to court (e.g., Auschwitz trials). However, many of the less prominent leaders continued to live well into the 1980s and 1990s.
The victorious Allies outlawed the Nazi Party, its subsidiary organizations, and most symbols and emblems (including the swastika in most manifestations) throughout Germany and Austria; this prohibition remains in force to the present day. The end of Nazi Germany also saw the rise in unpopularity of related aggressive nationalism in Germany such as
Pan-GermanismPan-Germanism was a political movement of the 19th century aiming for unity of the German-speaking populations of Europe, identified as Volksdeutsche .- Origins :...
and the
Völkisch movementThe völkisch movement is the German interpretation of the populist movement, with a romantic focus on folklore and the "organic". The term völkisch, meaning "ethnic", derives from the German word Volk , corresponding to "people", with connotations in German of "people-powered", "folksy" and...
which had previously been significant political ideas in Germany and in Europe prior to the Second World War, those that remain are largely at present, fringe movements. In all non-fascist European countries legal purges were established to punish the members of the former Nazi and Fascist parties. Even there, however, some of the former leaders found ways to accommodate themselves under the new circumstances.
Nuremberg Trials
The numerous crimes committed by Nazi Germany fostered a revival of
internationalismInternationalism is a political movement which advocates a greater economic and political cooperation among nations for the theoretical benefit of all...
in the western and eastern blocs, resulting in the creation of the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
. One of the UN's first objectives was establishing a series of war crimes tribunals to convict Nazi officials, called the
Nuremberg TrialsThe Nuremberg trials were a series of trials, or tribunals, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of Nazi Germany after its defeat in World War II....
, named after where the trials were held, in the Nazis' former political stronghold of
NurembergNuremberg is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. It is situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal and is Franconia's largest city. It is located about 170 kilometres north of Munich, at 49.27° N 11.5° E. The population is...
,
BavariaBavaria , with an area of and almost 12.5 million inhabitants, is located in the southeast of Germany and is the largest state of Germany by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
. The first major and most well-known Nuremberg trial was officially called the Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal (IMT). This trial involved twenty-four key Nazi officials including
Hermann GöringHermann Wilhelm Göring was a German politician, military leader and a leading member of the Nazi Party. Among many offices, he was Hitler's designated successor and commander of the Luftwaffe...
,
Ernst KaltenbrunnerErnst Kaltenbrunner was a senior Austrian official during World War II, holding the offices of Chief of the RSHA, and President of Interpol. He was the highest-ranking SS leader to face trial, having the full rank of Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei und Waffen-SS...
,
Rudolf HessRudolf Walter Richard Hess was a prominent figure in Nazi Germany, acting as Adolf Hitler's Deputy in the Nazi Party. On the eve of war with the Soviet Union, he flew solo to Scotland in an attempt to negotiate peace with the United Kingdom, but instead was arrested...
,
Albert SpeerAlbert Speer was a German architect who was, for part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Speer was Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming ministerial office...
,
Karl DönitzKarl Dönitz was a German naval Commander who served in the Imperial German Navy during World War I, and during World War II commanded first the German submarine fleet, and then the entire German Navy .In the final days of the war, Dönitz was named by Adolf Hitler as his successor, and after the...
,
Hans FrankHans Michael Frank was a German lawyer who worked for the Nazi party during the 1920s and 1930s and later became a high-ranking official in Nazi Germany. He was prosecuted during the Nuremberg trials for his role in perpetrating the Holocaust during his tenure as Governor-General of occupied Poland...
and
Julius StreicherJulius Streicher was a prominent Nazi prior to World War II. He was the founder and publisher of Der Stürmer newspaper, which became a central element of the Nazi propaganda machine...
. The trial found many of the accused to be guilty and twelve were sentenced to death by hanging. Many people that were hanged praised Hitler in their last seconds of life before being executed. A few officials managed to avoid being executed, including Göring, who committed suicide by ingesting a
cyanideA cyanide is any chemical compound that contains the cyano group , which consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Inorganic cyanides are hydrogen cyanide salts in which cyanide is generally the anion CN
-. Organic compounds that have a -C≡N functional group bonded to...
tablet before he could be hanged; Hess, a formerly close confidant to Hitler, was sentenced to life in prison and stayed in Spandau prison until his death in 1987; Speer, the state architect and later armaments minister, served twenty years despite his use of slave labour in projects;
Konstantin von NeurathKonstantin Freiherr von Neurath was a German diplomat, Foreign Minister of Germany and Reichsprotektor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia . Neurath remained titular Protector until 1943.- Early life :He was born in Vaihingen an der Enz, Kingdom of Württemberg, the son of minor Swabian...
, a Third Reich cabinet minister who was in office prior to the Nazi regime; and another minister who also served in the pre-Nazi government, economist
Hjalmar SchachtDr. Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht was the Currency Commissioner and President of the Reichsbank under the Weimar Republic, and President of the Reichsbank between 1933 and 1939...
.
Some accused the Nuremberg Trials to be a form of "
victor's justiceThe label "victor's justice" means a situation in which an entity believes that a victorious nation is applying different rules to judge what is right or wrong for their own forces and for those of the enemy. Advocates generally charge that the difference in rules amounts to hypocrisy and leads...
", in that no similar action was taken to punish the war crimes and crimes against humanity of the victors, i.e. those of the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
, France,
Great BritainGreat Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island. With a population of about 59.6 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Great Britain is surrounded by over 1000 smaller...
and the United States during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Geography
Administrative regions
Under the Nazi regime, administrative powers were significantly altered. The German
constituent statesA constituent country is a country that is part of a larger entity, such as a sovereign state or supranational body.- Use by international bodies :...
were replaced in 1935 by local "gaus" (regional districts) led by Nazi officials who obeyed the central government's orders. This change consolidated Hitler's control over Germany and weakened the political weight of Prussia, which in the past dominated German political affairs. The central government and the gaus took over the states' powers, however Nazi officials still held leadership titles over the non-existent states, such as
Hermann GöringHermann Wilhelm Göring was a German politician, military leader and a leading member of the Nazi Party. Among many offices, he was Hitler's designated successor and commander of the Luftwaffe...
, who was remained the
ReichsstatthalterThe term Reichsstatthalter was used twice for different offices, in the imperial Hohenzollern dynasty's German Empire and the single-party Nazi Third Reich.- "Statthalter des Reiches" 1879-1918 in Alsace-Lorraine :...
and
Minister-President of PrussiaThe office of Minister President or Prime Minister of Prussia existed in one form or another from 1792 until the dissolution of Prussia in 1947. When Prussia was an independent kingdom the Minister President or Prime Minister functioned as the King's Chief Minister and presided over the Prussian...
until 1945, and
Ludwig SiebertLudwig Siebert was a Nazi politician and Bavarian prime minister from 1933 to 1942.-Life:...
as
Minister-President of Bavaria.
In addition to
Weimar-era Germany properThe Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government, named after Weimar, the place where the constitutional assembly took place. Its official name was still Deutsches Reich , however...
, the
ReichReich is a German loanword cognate with the English reign, but used most often to designate an empire, realm, or nation. The qualitative connotation from the German is " sovereign state." It is also cognate with the Latin word and the Scandinavian rike/rige, , , ; as found in bishopric...
came to include, in the years leading up to the war, areas with ethnic German populations such as
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
, the
SudetenlandSudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia.The name is derived from the...
, and the territory of
MemelThe Klaipėda Region or Memel Territory was defined by the Treaty of Versailles in 1920 when it was put under the administration of the Council of Ambassadors...
. Regions acquired after the outbreak of conflict include
EupenEupen is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Liège, 15 km from the German border , from the Dutch border and from the nature reservation "High Fens" . The town is also the capital of the Euroregion Meuse-Rhine....
-et-
MalmédyMalmedy is a municipality of Belgium. It lies in the country's Walloon Region and Province of Liege. It belongs to the French Community of Belgium. On January 1, 2006 Malmedy had a total population of 11,829...
,
Alsace-LorraineAlsace-Lorraine was a territorial entity created by the German Empire in 1871 after the annexation of most of Alsace and the Moselle region of Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian War. The Alsatian part lay in the Rhine Valley on the west bank of the Rhine River and on the east of the Vosges Mountains...
,
DanzigThe Free City of Danzig was a semi-autonomous, Baltic Sea port and city-state that was created on 10 January 1920, against the wishes of the local population but in accordance with the terms of Part III, Section XI of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919...
and territories of
PolandThe Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; from the creation of an independent Polish state in the aftermath of World War I, to the invasion of Poland in 1939 by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Slovak Republic,...
. In addition, from 1939 to 1945, the Reich ruled
Bohemia and MoraviaThe Czech Republic is a country in Central Europe that is sometimes considered to be Eastern European. The country borders Poland to the northeast, Germany to the west and northwest, Austria to the south and Slovakia to the east. The capital and largest city is Prague...
as a
protectorateThe Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was the majority ethnic-Czech protectorate which Nazi Germany established in the central parts of Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia in what is today the Czech Republic...
, subjugated and annexed prior to the start of the world war. Although under German control and administration, the protectorate had its
own currencyThe koruna, known as the Protectorate crown , was the currency of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia between 1939 and 1945. It was subdivided into 100 haléřů.-History:...
.
Regions and protectorates
Czech SilesiaCzech Silesia is one of the three Czech lands and a section of the Silesian historical region. It is located in the north-east of the Czech Republic, predominantly in Moravian-Silesian Region, with a section in northern Olomouc Region...
was incorporated into the
province of SilesiaThe Province of Silesia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1815 to 1919; the territory had been conquered from Habsburg Austria during the 18th century Silesian Wars. The provincial capital was Breslau. During the Weimar Republic, in 1919, Silesia was divided into the separate provinces...
during the same period. In 1942
LuxembourgLuxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a small, landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany...
was directly annexed into Germany. Central
PolandThe Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; from the creation of an independent Polish state in the aftermath of World War I, to the invasion of Poland in 1939 by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Slovak Republic,...
and Polish Galicia were run by a protectorate government, called the
General GovernmentThe General Government refers to a part of the territories of Poland under German military occupation during World War II and that were a separate part of "Greater Germany"...
. Eventually, the
Polish peopleThe Polish people, or Poles , are a Western Slavic ethnic group of Central Europe, living predominantly in Poland. Poles are sometimes defined as people who share a common Polish culture and are of Polish descent. Their religion is predominantly Roman Catholic...
were supposed to be "removed" and Poland itself populated with 5 million Germans. By late 1943, Germany not only seized Bolzano-Bozen (South Tyrol) and
IstriaCroatian Istria , formerly Histria , is the largest peninsula in the Adriatic Sea. The peninsula is located at the head of the Adriatic between the Gulf of Trieste and the Bay of Kvarner...
, which had been part of
Austria-HungaryAustria–Hungary, also known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the k.u.k. Monarchy, or Dual State, was a monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in Central Europe...
before 1919, but also seized
TriesteTrieste is a city and seaport in north eastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south, east and north of the city...
from its erstwhile ally Italy after it capitulated to the Allies.
Idea of the Greater Germany
Outside of what was directly annexed into Germany were the regional territories created in occupied lands. In many areas, occupied territories called Reichskommissariat
were set up. In the occupied Soviet Union territories, these included the Reichskommissariat OstlandReichskommissariat Ostland was the German name for the Nazi civil administration of part of the occupied Eastern territories of the Third Reich, occupied during World War II...
and Reichskommissariat UkraineThe Reichskommissariat Ukraine was the civil administration of much of German-occupied Ukraine during World War II. Between September 1941 and March 1944, the Reichskommissariat was administered by Reichskommissar Erich Koch as a colony...
. In northern Europe, there was the Reichskommissariat NiederlandeAfter being occupied by Nazi Germany, the Netherlands became governed by a Reichskommissariat, which was an occupation authority. It was administered by a German governor Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who formerly was the last chancellor of Austria who initiated its annexation into Germany.- Collaboration...
(Netherlands) and Reichskommissariat NorwegenReichskommissariat Norwegen was the administrative occupation authority set up by Nazi Germany in German-occupied Norway during World War II. It was governed by Reichskommissar Josef Terboven until his suicide on May 7, 1945...
(Norway) which were designed to foster German colonization. In 1944, a Reichskommissariat was founded in Belgium and northern France, previously known as the Military Administration of Belgium and North France, where travel restrictions were enforced in order to foster German colonization.
The Reich's borders had changed de facto well before its military defeat in May 1945, as parts of the German population fled westward from the advancing
Red ArmyThe Red Army The Red Army The Red Army was the Soviet government’s revolutionary militia beginning in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the USSR. Since 1946, after the Second World War, it was called the Soviet Army.The 'Red...
and the
Western AlliesThe term Western Allies refers to a certain political and geographic grouping among the Allied Powers of the Second World War. It generally includes the United Kingdom and British Commonwealth, the United States, France and various other European and Latin American countries, but excludes China,...
pressed eastward from France. By the end of the war, a small strip of land stretching from Austria to Bohemia and Moravia—as well as a few other isolated regions—was the only area not under Allied control. Upon its defeat, some have claimed that the Reich was in a state of debellation. Occupation zones were set up and administrated by France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. The prewar German lands east of the
Oder-Neisse lineThe Oder-Neisse line was drawn in the aftermath of World War II as the eastern border of Germany and the western border of Poland. The line is formed primarily by the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, and meets the Baltic Sea west of the seaport cities of Szczecin and Świnoujście...
and Stettin and its surrounding area – nearly 25% of pre-war Germany – were set under Polish and Soviet administration but factually sundered from Germany for annexation by Poland and the Soviet Union. The millions of Germans remaining in the areas were
expelled by the AlliesBy the end of World War II, most of the German population fled or was expelled from areas outside the territory of post-war Germany and post-war Austria, including:...
. In Law #46 of 20 May 1947 the Allied Control Council formally proclaimed the dissolution of Prussia. Those parts of Prussia which were to the east of the Oder-Neisse Line were divided and placed under Soviet (
Kaliningrad OblastKaliningrad Oblast , informally called Yantarny kray is a federal subject of Russia situated on the Baltic coast. Population: 968,200 ; ....
) and Polish administration by the 16 Jul to 2 Aug 1945 Potsdam Conference, pending the final Peace Treaty. By signing the
Treaty of Warsaw (1970)The Treaty of Warsaw was a treaty between West Germany and the People's Republic of Poland. It was signed on 7 December 1970, and it was ratified by the German Bundestag on 17 May 1972....
and the
Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to GermanyThe Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany was negotiated in 1990 between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic , and the Four Powers which occupied Germany at the end of World War II in Europe: France, the United Kingdom, the United States of...
(1990), Germany finally renounced any claims to territories lost during the Second World War.
Economy
When the Nazis came to power the most pressing issue was an unemployment rate of close to 30%. The economic policies of the Third Reich were in the beginning the brainchildren of
Hjalmar SchachtDr. Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht was the Currency Commissioner and President of the Reichsbank under the Weimar Republic, and President of the Reichsbank between 1933 and 1939...
, who assumed office as president of the central bank under Hitler in 1933, and became finance minister in the following year. Schacht was one of the few finance ministers to take advantage of the freedom provided by the end of the
gold standardThe gold standard is a monetary system in which a region's common medium of exchange are paper notes that are normally freely convertible into pre-set, fixed quantities of gold...
to keep interest rates low and government budget deficits high, with massive public works funded by large budget deficits. The consequence was an extremely rapid decline in unemployment--the most rapid decline in unemployment in any country during the Great Depression. Eventually this Keynesian economic policy was supplemented by the boost to demand provided by rearmament and swelling military spending.
Hjalmar SchachtDr. Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht was the Currency Commissioner and President of the Reichsbank under the Weimar Republic, and President of the Reichsbank between 1933 and 1939...
was finally replaced in 1937 by Hitler's lieutenant Hermann Goering when he resigned. Goering introduced the four year plan whose main aim was to make Germany self-sufficient to fight a war within four years. Under Goering imports were slashed. Wages and prices were controlled--under penalty of being sent to a concentration camp. Dividends were restricted to six percent on book capital. And strategic goals to be reached at all costs (much like Soviet planning) were declared: the construction of synthetic rubber plants, more steel plants, automatic textile factories.
While the strict state intervention into the economy, and the massive rearmament policy, almost led to full employment during the 1930s (statistics didn't include non-citizens or women), real wages in Germany dropped by roughly 25% between 1933 and 1938. Trade unions were abolished, as well as collective bargaining and the right to strike. The right to quit also disappeared: Labour books were introduced in 1935, and required the consent of the previous employer in order to be hired for another job. In place of ordinary profit incentive to guide investment, investment was guided through regulation to accord with needs of the State. Government financing eventually came to dominate the investment process, which the proportion of private securities issued falling from over half of the total in 1933 and 1934 to approximately 10 percent in 1935–1938. Heavy taxes on profits limited self-financing of firms. The largest firms were mostly exempt from taxes on profits, however government control of these were extensive enough to leave "only the shell of private ownership."
Another part of the new German economy was massive rearmament, with the goal being to expand the 100,000-strong German Army into a force of millions. The Four-Year Plan was discussed in the controversial
Hossbach MemorandumThe Hossbach Memorandum was the summary of a meeting on November 5 1937 between German dictator Adolf Hitler and his military and foreign policy leadership. The meeting marked a turning point in Hitler's foreign policies, which then began to radicalize. It outlined Hitler's plans for expansion in...
, which provides the "minutes" from one of Hitler's briefings.
Nevertheless, the war came and although the Four-Year Plan technically expired in 1940, Hermann Göring had built up a power base in the "Office of the Four-Year Plan" that effectively controlled all German economic and production matters by this point in time. In 1942 the growing burdens of the war and the death of Todt saw the economy move to a full
war economyWar economy is the term used to describe the contingencies undertaken by the modern state to mobilise its economy for war production. Philippe Le Billon describes a war economy as a "system of producing, mobilising and allocating resources to sustain the violence".Many states increase the degree of...
under
Albert SpeerAlbert Speer was a German architect who was, for part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Speer was Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming ministerial office...
.
The war time economy of Nazi Germany can effectively neither be described as a free market
economy nor as centrally planned
. In the words of Richard OveryRichard Overy is a British historian who has published extensively on the history of World War II and the Third Reich. In 2007 as The Times editor of Complete History of the World he chose the 50 key dates of world history....
: "The Germany economy fell between two stools. It was not enough of a command economy to do what the Soviet system could do; yet it was not capitalist enough to rely, as America did, on the recruitment of private enterprise." Use of
forced labour in Nazi Germany during World War IIUse of forced labour in Nazi Germany during World War II occurred on a large scale. It was an important part of the German economic exploitation of conquered territories; it also contributed to the extermination of populations of German–occupied Europe...
occurred on a large scale. The Germans abducted about 12 million people from almost twenty European countries; about two thirds of whom came from Eastern Europe.
Politics
Through staffing of most government positions with Nazi Party members, by 1935 the German national government and the Nazi Party had become virtually one and the same. By 1938, through the policy of
GleichschaltungGleichschaltung , meaning "coordination", "making the same", "bringing into line", is a Nazi term for the process by which the Nazi regime successively established a system of totalitarian control over the individual, and tight coordination over all aspects of society and commerce. The historian...
, local and state governments lost all legislative power and answered administratively to Nazi Party leaders, known as GauleiterA Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Etymology:...
s, who governed GauA Gau is a German term for a region within a country, often a former or actual province. It was used in medieval times, when it can be seen as roughly corresponding to an English shire, and was revived as an administrative subdivision during the period of Nazi rule in Germany.-The Gau in the...
e
and ReichsgauA Reichsgau was an administrative sub-division created in a number of the areas annexed to Nazi Germany between 1938 and 1945...
e.
Government
Nazi Germany was made up of various competing power structures, all trying to gain favor with the Führer, Adolf Hitler. Thus many existing laws were stricken and replaced with interpretations of what Hitler wanted. Any high party/government official could take one of Hitler's comments and turn it into a new law, of which Hitler would casually either approve or disapprove. This became known as "working towards the
FührerThe word Führer is 'leader' or 'guide' in the German language, derived from the verb , a cognate of the Old English words faran and fær and the Modern English words derived from the older terms such as now mostly used in compounds such as wayfarer and sea-faring...
", as the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of individuals each trying to gain more power and influence through the Führer. This often made government very convoluted and divided, especially with Hitler's vague policy of creating similar posts with overlapping powers and authority. The process allowed the more unscrupulous and ambitious Nazis to get away with implementing the more radical and extreme elements of Hitler's ideology, such as anti-Semitism, and in doing so win political favor. Protected by Goebbels' extremely effective propaganda machine, which portrayed the government as a dedicated, dutiful and efficient outfit, the dog-eat-dog competition and chaotic legislation was allowed to escalate. Historical opinion is divided between "intentionalists", who believe that Hitler created this system as the only means of ensuring both the total loyalty and dedication of his supporters and the impossibility of a conspiracy; and "structuralists", who believe that the system evolved by itself and was a limitation on Hitler's supposedly totalitarian power.
Cabinet and national authorities
- Office of the Reich Chancellery
The Reich Chancellery was the traditional name of the office of the German Chancellor . Today the office is usually called Kanzleramt , or more formally Bundeskanzleramt ....
(Hans LammersDr. Jur. Hans Heinrich Lammers was a prominent Nazi and head of the Reich Chancellery.Born in Lublinitz in Upper Silesia, the son of a veterinarian,...
)
- Office of the Party Chancellery
Party Chancellery was the name of the office that replaced that of Deputy Führer of the National Socialist German Workers Party . Party Chancellery replaced Deputy Führer after Rudolf Hess made his flight to Britain in 1941...
(Martin BormannMartin Ludwig Bormann was a prominent Nazi official. He became head of the Party Chancellery and private secretary to Adolf Hitler...
)
- Office of the Presidential Chancellery (Otto Meissner)
- Privy Cabinet Council (Konstantin von Neurath
Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath was a German diplomat, Foreign Minister of Germany and Reichsprotektor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia . Neurath remained titular Protector until 1943.- Early life :He was born in Vaihingen an der Enz, Kingdom of Württemberg, the son of minor Swabian...
)
- Chancellery of the Führer (Philip Bouhler)
Reich offices
- Office of the Four-Year Plan
The Four Year Plan was a series of economic reforms created by the Nazi Party. The Four Year Plan sought to Reduce Unemployment; increase synthetic fibre production; undertake public works projects under the direction of Fritz Todt; increased automobile production; initiate numerous building and...
(Hermann GöringHermann Wilhelm Göring was a German politician, military leader and a leading member of the Nazi Party. Among many offices, he was Hitler's designated successor and commander of the Luftwaffe...
)
- Office of the Reich Master Forester (Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring was a German politician, military leader and a leading member of the Nazi Party. Among many offices, he was Hitler's designated successor and commander of the Luftwaffe...
)
- Office of the Inspector for Highways
- Office of the President of the Reich Bank
- Reich Youth Office
- Reich Treasury Office
- General Inspector of the Reich Capital
- Office of the Councillor for the Capital of the Movement (Munich, Bavaria)
Reich ministries
- Reich Foreign Ministry (Joachim von Ribbentrop
Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 until 1945. He was later hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg Trials.- Early life :...
)
- Reich Interior Ministry (Wilhelm Frick
Wilhelm Frick was a prominent Nazi official, serving as Minister of the Interior of the Third Reich. After the end of World War II, he was executed for war crimes.- Early life and family :...
, Heinrich HimmlerHeinrich Luitpold Himmler , one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany, served as Chief of the German Police and Minister of the Interior...
)
- Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda
The Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda was Nazi Germany's ministry that enforced Nazi Party ideology in Germany and regulated its culture and society. Founded on March 13, 1933, by Adolf Hitler's new National Socialist government, the Ministry was headed by Dr...
(Joseph GoebbelsPaul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reichsminister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945...
)
- Reich Ministry of Aviation (Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring was a German politician, military leader and a leading member of the Nazi Party. Among many offices, he was Hitler's designated successor and commander of the Luftwaffe...
)
- Reich Ministry of Finance (Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk)
- Reich Ministry of Justice (Otto Thierack)
- Reich Economics Ministry (Walther Funk
Walther Funk was a prominent Nazi official. He served as Minister for Economic Affairs in Nazi Germany from 1937 to 1945.-Early life:...
)
- Reich Ministry for Nutrition and Agriculture (Richard Walther Darré)
- Reich Labour Ministry (Franz Seldte
Franz Seldte was a cofounder of the German paramilitary organization Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten, a Nazi politician, and a Reich labour minister....
)
- Reich Ministry for Science, Education, and Public Instruction (Bernhard Rust
Dr. Bernhard Rust was Minister of Science, Education and National Culture in Nazi Germany. A combination of school administrator and zealous Nazi, he issued decrees, often bizarre, at every level of the German educational system to immerse German youth in the National Socialist philosophy...
)
- Reich Ministry for Ecclesiastical Affairs (Hanns Kerrl
Hanns Kerrl was a German Nazi politician. His most prominent position, from July 1935, was that of Reichsminister of Church Affairs...
)
- Reich Transportation Ministry (Julius Dorpmüller
Julius Heinrich Dorpmueller was general manager of Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft from 1926-45 and German Transport Minister from 1937-45.- Life :...
)
- Reich Postal Ministry (Wilhelm Ohnesorge
Karl Wilhelm Ohnesorge was a German politician in the Third Reich who sat in Hitler's cabinet. From 1937 to 1945, he also acted as the minister and official of the Reichspost, the German postal service, having succeeded Paul Freiherr von Eltz-Rübenach as minister...
)
- Reich Ministry for Weapons, Munitions, and Armament (Fritz Todt
Fritz Todt was a German engineer and senior Nazi figure, the founder of Organisation Todt. He died in a plane crash during World War II.- Life :Todt was born in Pforzheim, to a father who owned a small factory...
, Albert SpeerAlbert Speer was a German architect who was, for part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Speer was Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming ministerial office...
)
- Reich Ministers without Portfolio (Konstantin von Neurath
Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath was a German diplomat, Foreign Minister of Germany and Reichsprotektor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia . Neurath remained titular Protector until 1943.- Early life :He was born in Vaihingen an der Enz, Kingdom of Württemberg, the son of minor Swabian...
, Hans FrankHans Michael Frank was a German lawyer who worked for the Nazi party during the 1920s and 1930s and later became a high-ranking official in Nazi Germany. He was prosecuted during the Nuremberg trials for his role in perpetrating the Holocaust during his tenure as Governor-General of occupied Poland...
, Hjalmar SchachtDr. Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht was the Currency Commissioner and President of the Reichsbank under the Weimar Republic, and President of the Reichsbank between 1933 and 1939...
, Arthur Seyss-InquartArthur Seyss-Inquart was a prominent lawyer and later Nazi official in pre-Anschluss Austria, the Third Reich and for wartime Germany in Poland and the Netherlands...
)
State ideology
National Socialism had some of the key ideological elements of
fascismFascism, , comprises a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology and a corporatist economic ideology developed in Italy. Fascists believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in...
which originally developed in Italy under
Benito MussoliniBenito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini,
KSMOM GCTE was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism. He became the Prime Minister of Italy in 1922 and began using the title Il Duce by...
; however, the Nazis never officially declared themselves fascists. Both ideologies involved the political use of
militarismMilitarism is the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests....
,
nationalismNationalism is an ideology, a sentiment, a form of culture, or a social movement that focuses on the nation. It is a type of collectivism emphasizing the collective of a specific nation...
,
anti-communismAnti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism, especially Marxism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the growing popularity of the communist movement, and took on many forms during the 20th century....
and paramilitary forces, and both intended to create a
dictatorialA dictatorship is defined as an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator, without hereditary ascension. It has three possible meanings:...
state. The Nazis, however, were far more racially-oriented than the fascists in Italy,
PortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and south and by Spain to the north and east...
, and Spain. The Nazis were also intent on creating a completely totalitarian state, unlike Italian fascists who while promoting a totalitarian state, allowed a larger degree of private liberties for their citizens. These differences allowed the Italian monarchy to continue to exist and have some official powers. However the Nazis copied much of their symbolism from the Fascists in Italy, such as copying the
Roman saluteThe Roman salute is a gesture in which the arm is held out forward straight, with palm down, and fingers touching. Sometimes the arm is raised upward at an angle, sometimes it is held out parallel to the ground. A well known symbol of Fascism, it is commonly perceived to be based on a classical...
as the Nazi salute, use of mass rallies, both made use of uniformed paramilitaries devoted to the party (the SA in Germany and the Blackshirts in Italy), both Hitler and Mussolini were called the "Leader" (Führer in German, Duce in Italian), both were anti-Communist, both wanted an ideologically-driven state, and both advocated a middle-way between capitalism and communism, commonly known as
corporatismCorporatism is a system of economic, political, and social organization where corporate groups such as business, ethnic, farmer, labour, military, patronage, or religious groups are joined together into a single governing body in which the different groups are mandated to negotiate with each other...
. The party itself rejected the fascist label, claiming National Socialism was an ideology unique to Germany. Many analysts, however, classify National Socialism as a racially-oriented version of fascism.
The totalitarian nature of the Nazi party was one of its principal tenets. The Nazis contended that all the great achievements in the past of the German nation and its people were associated with the ideals of National Socialism, even before the ideology officially existed.
PropagandaPropaganda is communication aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience...
accredited the consolidation of Nazi ideals and successes of the regime to the regime's
FührerThe word Führer is 'leader' or 'guide' in the German language, derived from the verb , a cognate of the Old English words faran and fær and the Modern English words derived from the older terms such as now mostly used in compounds such as wayfarer and sea-faring...
("Leader"), Adolf Hitler, who was portrayed as the genius behind the Nazi party's success and Germany's saviour.
To secure their ability to create a totalitarian state, the Nazi party's paramilitary force, the SturmabteilungThe , abbreviated SA , functioned as a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party...
(SA) or "Storm Detachment" used acts of violence against leftists, communist, democrats, Jews and other opposition or minority groups. The SA "storm troopers" violently clashed with the Communist Party of Germany (German Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands – KPD) which created a climate of lawlessness and fear. In the cities, people were anxious over punishment or even death, if they displayed opposition to the Nazis. Given the frustrations of the people (after World War One and during the Great Depression) it was easy for the SA to attract large numbers of alienated (and unemployed) youth and working class people for the party.
The "German problem", as it is often referred to in English scholarship, focuses on the issue of administration of Germanic regions in Northern and Central Europe, an important theme throughout German history. The "logic" of keeping Germany small worked in the favor of its principal economic rivals, and had been a driving force in the recreation of a Polish state. The goal was to create numerous counterweights in order to "balance out Germany's power".
The Nazis endorsed the concept of Großdeutschland, or
Greater GermanyGroßdeutschland is a term referring to the concept of one German nation-state encompassing most or all of the Germanophone and/or Germanic population of Europe....
, and believed that the incorporation of the Germanic people into one nation was a vital step towards their national success. It was the Nazis' passionate support of the Volk concept of Greater Germany that led to Germany's expansion, that gave legitimacy and the support needed for the Third Reich to proceed to conquer long-lost territories with overwhelmingly non-German population like former Prussian gains in Poland that it lost to Russia in the 1800s, or to acquire territories with German population like parts of Austria. The German concept of
Lebensraumserved as a major motivation for Nazi Germany's territorial aggression, was a reinterpretation of the by then century-old concept of Drang nach Osten...
(living space) or more specifically its need for an expanding German population was also claimed by the Nazi regime for territorial expansion.
Two important issues were administration of the
Polish corridorThe Polish Corridor was a territory located in the region of Pomerelia which provided the Second Republic of Poland with access to the Baltic Sea, thus dividing the bulk of Germany from her province of East Prussia...
and Danzig's incorporation into the Reich. As a further extension of racial policy, the Lebensraum program pertained to similar interests; the Nazis determined that Eastern Europe would be settled with ethnic Germans, and the
SlavicThe Slavic Peoples are an ethnic and linguistic branch of Indo-European peoples, living mainly in eastern and central Europe. From the early 6th century they spread from their original homeland to inhabit most of eastern Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans...
population who met the Nazi racial standard would be absorbed into the Reich. Those not fitting the racial standard were to be used as cheap labour force or deported eastward.
RacialismRacialism is an emphasis on race or racial considerations.Racialism entails a belief in the existence and significance of racial categories, but not necessarily in a hierarchy between the races, or in any political or ideological position of racial supremacy....
and
racismRacism is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. In the case of institutional racism, certain racial groups may be denied rights or benefits, or get preferential treatment...
were important aspects of society within the Third Reich. The Nazis combined
anti-SemitismAntisemitism is prejudice against or hostility towards Jews, often rooted in hatred of their ethnic background, culture, or religion....
with anti-Communist ideology, regarding the leftist-internationalist movement—as well as international market capitalism—as the work of "Conspiratorial Jewry". They referred to this so-called movement with terminology such as the "Jewish-Bolshevistic revolution of subhumans". This platform manifested itself in the displacement, internment, and systematic extermination of an estimated 11 million to 12 million people in the midst of World War II, roughly half of them being Jews targeted in what is historically remembered as
the HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
(Shoah), 3 million ethnic
PolesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a Western Slavic ethnic group of Central Europe, living predominantly in Poland. Poles are sometimes defined as people who share a common Polish culture and are of Polish descent. Their religion is predominantly Roman Catholic...
,and another 100,000–1,000,000 being Roma, who were murdered in the
PorajmosThe Porajmos is a Romani term introduced by Romani scholar and activist Ian Hancock to describe attempts by the regime in Nazi Germany to exterminate most of the Romani people of Europe as part of the Holocaust.The phenomenon has been little studied and largely overshadowed by the Shoah The...
. Other victims of Nazi persecution included communists, various political opponents, social outcasts, homosexuals, freethinkers, religious dissidents such as
Jehovah's WitnessesJehovah's Witnesses were persecuted in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. Members of the religious group refused to serve in the military or give allegiance to the Nazi government, for which many were killed, imprisoned or sent to concentration camps....
, Christadelphians, the
Confessing ChurchThe Confessing Church was a Protestant schismatic church in Nazi Germany that arose in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to nazify the German Protestant church.-Demographics:...
and
FreemasonsFreemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around 5 million, including just under two million in the United States and around 480,000 in...
.
Foreign relations
Foreign relations between Germany and the rest of Europe were riddled with political manuevres and opportunistic decisions. Fearing a second world war, Britain and France sought a policy of appeasement towards Germany, and refused aggressive foreign policies to satisfy the newly-powered Nazis. Hitler aims upon coming to power was threefold; destroy Versailles, re-unite lost German territories under the decrees of Versailles, and ‘Lebensraum’. It is said that Hitler eventually wanted Britain as an ally with eventual wars with the USSR, and eventually the USA. Hitler used the Appeasement policies of Britain and France to his opportunistic advantage when he announced in March 1935 that he would conscript men into his army and create the
LuftwaffeLuftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1933 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956.Schweizer Luftwaffe is also the name of the Swiss Air...
; both a direct violation of Versailles. His foreign policies were designed to test the nerve of Britain and France so he could see what else he was able to get away with. His other concern was Italy, whom under Mussolini had become a similarly fascist country, but had so much internal civil disruption Hitler wanted a more stable and powerful ally.
Although Germany's relations with Italy improved with creation of the Rome-Berlin Axis, tensions remained high because the Nazis wanted Austria to be incorporated into Germany. Italy was opposed to this, as were France and Britain. In 1938, an Austrian-led Nazi coup took place in Austria and Germany sent in its troops, annexing the country. Italy and Britain no longer had common interests and, as Germany had stopped supporting the German speaking population under Italy's control in Bolzano-Bozen(South Tyrol), Italy began to gravitate towards Germany.
Germany's annexation of the
SudetenlandSudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia.The name is derived from the...
from
CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
in September 1938 came about during talks with British Prime Minister
Neville ChamberlainArthur Neville Chamberlain was a British Conservative politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1937 to 1940...
, in which Hitler, backed by Italian dictator
Benito MussoliniBenito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini,
KSMOM GCTE was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism. He became the Prime Minister of Italy in 1922 and began using the title Il Duce by...
, demanded that the German territories be ceded. Chamberlain and Hitler came to an agreement when Hitler signed a piece of paper which said that with the annexation of the Sudetenland, Germany would proceed with no further territorial aims. Chamberlain took this to be a success in that it avoided a potential war with Germany. However, the Nazis helped to promote Slovakian dissention and declaring that the country was no more, seized control of the Czech part.
For quite some time, Germany had engaged in informal negotiations with Poland regarding the issue of territorial revision, but after the Munich Agreement and the reacquisition of Memel, the Nazis became increasingly vocal. Poland refused to allow the annexation of the
Free City of DanzigThe Free City of Danzig was a semi-autonomous, Baltic Sea port and city-state that was created on 10 January 1920, against the wishes of the local population but in accordance with the terms of Part III, Section XI of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919...
.
Germany and the Soviet Union began talks over planning an invasion of Poland. In August 1939, the Molotov Pact was signed and Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to divide Poland along a mutually-agreed set boundary. The invasion was put into effect on 1 September 1939. Last-minute Polish-German diplomatic proceedings failed, and Germany invaded Poland as scheduled. Germany alleged that Polish operatives had attacked German positions, but the result was the outbreak of
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, as Allied forces refused to accept Germany's claims on Poland and blamed Germany for the conflict.
From 1939 to 1940, the so-called "Phony War" occurred, as German forces made no further advances but instead, both the Axis and Allies engaged in a propaganda campaign. However in early 1940, Germany began to concern that the British intended to stop trade between Sweden and Germany by bringing Norway into an alliance against Germany, with Norway in Allied hands, the Allies would be dangerously close to German territory. In response, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway ending the Phony War (leapfrogging the British invasion troops bound towards Norway by just 24 hours). After sweeping through the Low Countries and occupying northern France, Germany allowed French nationalist and war hero
Philippe PetainHenri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...
to form a fascist regime in southern France known as the "French State" but more commonly referred to as
Vichy FranceVichy France, or the Vichy regime are the common terms used to describe the government of France from July 1940 to August 1944. This government, which succeeded the Third Republic, officially called itself the French State , in contrast with the previous designation, "French Republic." Marshal...
named after its capital in
VichyVichy is a commune in the department of Allier in Auvergne in central France. It is known as a spa and resort town. It was the de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944....
.
In 1941 Germany's invasion of
YugoslaviaYugoslavia is a term that describes three political entities that existed successively on the Balkan Peninsula in Europe, during most of the 20th century.The first country to be known by this...
resulted in that state's splintering. In spite of Hitler's earlier view of inferiority of all Slavs, he supported Mussolini's agenda of creating a fascist puppet state of
CroatiaCroatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a country in southeast Europe, at the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean Sea. Its capital is Zagreb...
, called the
Independent State of CroatiaThe Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany. The NDH was established on April 10, 1941 after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers...
. Croatia was led by the extreme nationalist
Ante PavelićAnte Pavelić was a Yugoslav fascist politician and WWII collaborator. An ethnic Croatian ultra-nationalist who, bearing the title of "Poglavnik"
["Poglavnik" was a term coined by the Ustaše, and it was originally used as the title for the leader of the movement...]
a long-time Croatian exile in Rome, whose Ustashe movement formed a government in modern-day
CroatiaCroatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a country in southeast Europe, at the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean Sea. Its capital is Zagreb...
and
Bosnia and HerzegovinaBosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( or (Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian Latin: Bosna i Hercegovina; Serbian Cyrillic: Босна и Херцеговина) is a country in Southeast Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula...
. The Ustashe were allowed to persecute Serbs, while Germany contributed to that goal in German-occupied Serbia.
From 1941 to the end of the war, Germany engaged in war with the Soviet Union in its attempt to create the Nazi colonial goal of
Lebensraumserved as a major motivation for Nazi Germany's territorial aggression, was a reinterpretation of the by then century-old concept of Drang nach Osten...
"living space" for German citizens. The German occupation authorities set up occupation and colonial authorities called
ReichskommissariatA Reichskommissariat was an administration for occupied territories held by Nazi Germany in World War II led by a Nazi Party official known as a Reichskommissar...
s such as
Reichskommissariat OstlandReichskommissariat Ostland was the German name for the Nazi civil administration of part of the occupied Eastern territories of the Third Reich, occupied during World War II...
and
Reichskommissariat UkraineThe Reichskommissariat Ukraine was the civil administration of much of German-occupied Ukraine during World War II. Between September 1941 and March 1944, the Reichskommissariat was administered by Reichskommissar Erich Koch as a colony...
. The Slavic populations were to be destroyed along with Jews there to make way for German colonists.
As the fortunes of war changed, Germany was forced to occupy Italy when Mussolini was thrown out as Prime Minister by Italy's king in 1943. German forces rescued Mussolini and instructed him to establish a fascist regime in Italy called the
Italian Social RepublicThe Italian Social Republic was a puppet state of Nazi Germany led by the "Duce of the Nation" and "Minister of Foreign Affairs" Benito Mussolini. The RSI exercised official sovereignty in northern Italy but was largely dependent on the Wehrmacht to maintain control...
. This was the last major foreign policy delivered. The remainder of the war saw the decline of German power and desperate attempts by Nazi officials such as
Heinrich HimmlerHeinrich Luitpold Himmler , one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany, served as Chief of the German Police and Minister of the Interior...
to negotiate a peace with the western Allies against the wishes of Hitler.
Law
Most of the judicial structures and legal codes of the
Weimar RepublicThe Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government, named after Weimar, the place where the constitutional assembly took place. Its official name was still Deutsches Reich , however...
remained in use during the Third Reich, but significant changes within the judicial codes occurred, as well as significant changes in court rulings. The Nazi party was the only legal political party in Germany; all other political parties were banned. Most
human rightsHuman rights refer to the "basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled." Examples of rights and freedoms which have come to be commonly thought of as human rights include civil and political rights, such as the right to life and liberty, freedom of expression, and equality before the...
of the constitution of the Weimar Republic were disabled by several Reichsgesetze
(Reich's laws). Several minorities such as the Jews, opposition politicians and prisoners of war were deprived of most of their rights and responsibilities. The Plan to pass a Volksstrafgesetzbuch
(people's code of criminal justice) arose soon after 1933, but didn't come into reality until the end of WWII.
As a new type of court, the Volksgerichtshof (people's court) was established in 1934, only dealing with cases of political importance. From 1934 to September 1944, a total of 5,375 death sentences were spoken by the court. Not included in this numbers are the death sentences from 20 July 1944 until April 1945, which are estimated at 2,000. Its most prominent jurist was
Roland FreislerRoland Freisler was a prominent and notorious Nazi German judge. He became State Secretary of Adolf Hitler's Reich Ministry of Justice and President of the Volksgerichtshof , which was set up outside constitutional authority...
, who headed the court from August 1942 to February 1945.
Military
The military of the Third Reich – the Wehrmacht – was the name of the unified
armed forcesThe armed forces of a country are its government-sponsored defense, fighting forces, and organizations. They exist to further the foreign and domestic policies of their governing body, and to defend that body and the nation it represents from external and internal aggressors. In some countries...
of Germany from 1935 to 1945 with
HeerThe German Army is the land component of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany. Traditionally the German military forces have been composed of Army, the Navy, and an Air Force after World War I. It was reinstalled in 1955 as the West German Army and as a part of the newly formed...
(Army),
KriegsmarineThe Kriegsmarine was the name of the German Navy between 1935 and 1945, during the Nazi regime, superseding the Reichsmarine, and the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the Wehrmacht.-Command structure:Adolf Hitler was the commander-in-chief...
(Navy),
LuftwaffeLuftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1933 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956.Schweizer Luftwaffe is also the name of the Swiss Air...
(Air Force) and a military organization
Waffen-SSThe Waffen-SS was the combat arm of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside the Wehrmacht Heer regular army, but was never formally part of it...
(Military branch of the Schutzstaffel, which was, de facto, a fourth branch of the
WehrmachtWehrmacht was the name of the unified armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe ....
.
The
German ArmyThe German Army is the land component of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany. Traditionally the German military forces have been composed of Army, the Navy, and an Air Force after World War I. It was reinstalled in 1955 as the West German Army and as a part of the newly formed...
furthered concepts pioneered during the First World War, combining Ground and Air Force assets into combined arms teams. Coupled with traditional war fighting methods such as encirclements and the "battle of annihilation", the German military managed many lightning quick victories in the first year of the Second World War, prompting foreign journalists to create a new word for what they witnessed:
BlitzkriegBlitzkrieg is "a headline word applied retrospectively to describe a military doctrine of an all-mechanized force concentrating its attack on a small section of the enemy front then, once the latter is broken, proceeding without regard to its flank."During the interwar period, aircraft and tank...
. The total number of soldiers who served in the Wehrmacht during its existence from 1935 until 1945 is believed to approach 18.2 million.
Racial policy
The effects of Nazi social policy in Germany was divided between those considered to be "Aryan" and those considered "non-Aryan", Jewish, or part of other minority groups. For "Aryan" Germans, a number of social policies put through by the regime to benefit them were advanced for the time, including state opposition to the use of tobacco, an end to official stigmatization toward Aryan children who were born from parents outside of marriage, as well as giving financial assistance to Aryan German families who bore children.
The Nazi Party pursued its racial and social policies through persecution and killing of those considered social undesirables or "enemies of the Reich".
Especially targeted were minority groups such as
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
s,
RomaniThe Porajmos is a Romani term introduced by Romani scholar and activist Ian Hancock to describe attempts by the regime in Nazi Germany to exterminate most of the Romani people of Europe as part of the Holocaust.The phenomenon has been little studied and largely overshadowed by the Shoah The...
(also known as Gypsies), Jehovah's Witnesses, people with mental or physical
disabilitiesNazi eugenics were Nazi Germany's racially-based social policies that placed the improvement of the race through eugenics at the center of their concerns and targeted those humans they identified as "life unworthy of life" , including but not limited to the criminal, degenerate, dissident,...
and homosexuals.
In the 1930s, plans to isolate and eventually eliminate Jews completely in Germany began with the construction of ghettos, concentration camps, and labour camps which began with the 1933 construction of the
Dachau concentration campDachau concentration camp was the first Nazi concentration camp opened in Germany, located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory near the medieval town of Dachau, about 16 km northwest of Munich in the state of Bavaria which is located in southern Germany.Opened in March 1933, it...
, which
Heinrich HimmlerHeinrich Luitpold Himmler , one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany, served as Chief of the German Police and Minister of the Interior...
officially described as "the first concentration camp for
political prisonerA political prisoner is someone held in prison or otherwise detained, perhaps under house arrest, for his or her involvement in political activity.-"Political" prisoner:...
s."
In the years following the Nazi rise to power, many Jews were encouraged to leave the country and did so. By the time the
Nuremberg LawsThe Nuremberg Laws of 1935 were antisemitic laws in Nazi Germany which were introduced at the annual Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg. The laws classified people as German if all four of their grandparents were of "German or kindred blood", while people were classified as Jews if they descended from...
were passed in 1935, Jews were stripped of their German citizenship and denied government employment. Most Jews employed by Germans lost their jobs at this time, which were being taken by unemployed Germans. Notably, the Nazi government attempted to send 17,000 German Jews of Polish descent back to Poland, a decision which led to the assassination of
Ernst vom RathErnst Eduard vom Rath was a German diplomat. He is most noted for his assassination in Paris in 1938 by a Jewish youth, Herschel Grynszpan. The assassination triggered Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass"....
by
Herschel GrynszpanHerschel Feibel Grynszpan , was a German political assassin. Grynszpan's assassination of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath on November 7, 1938, served as a pretext for the Kristallnacht, the anti-semitic pogrom of November 9–10, 1938...
, a German Jew living in France. This provided the pretext for a
pogromA pogrom is a form of riot directed against a particular group, whether ethnic, religious, or other, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes, businesses, and religious centers...
the Nazi Party incited against the Jews on 9 November 1938, which specifically targeted Jewish businesses. The event was called
KristallnachtKristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass was an anti-Jewish pogrom in Nazi Germany and Austria on 9 to 10 November 1938. It is often called Novemberpogrome or Reichspogromnacht in German....
(Night of Broken Glass, literally "Crystal Night"); the
euphemismA euphemism is a substitution of an agreeable or less offensive expression in place of one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant to the listener, or in the case of Doublespeak, to make it less troublesome for the speaker...
was used because the numerous broken windows made the streets look as if covered with crystals. By September 1939 more than 200,000 Jews had left Germany, with the Nazi government seizing any property they left behind.
The Nazis also undertook programs targeting "weak" or "unfit" people, such as the T-4 Euthanasia Program, killing tens of thousands of disabled and sick Germans in an effort to "maintain the purity of the German
Master raceThe master race was a concept in Nazi ideology, which holds that the Teutonics , one of the branches of what in the late 19th and early 20th century was called the Aryan race, represent an ideal and "pure race"...
" (German: Herrenvolk) as described by
Nazi propagandistsPropaganda, the coordinated attempt to influence public opinion through the use of media, was skillfully used by the Nazi party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's leadership of Germany...
. The techniques of mass killing developed in these efforts would later be used in
the HolocaustThe Holocaust , also known as The Shoah is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany,...
. Under a law passed in 1933, the Nazi regime carried out the
compulsory sterilizationCompulsory sterilization or also called forced sterilization programs are government policies which attempt to force people to undergo surgical sterilization...
of over 400,000 individuals labeled as having hereditary defects, ranging from
mental illnessA mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern that occurs in an individual and is thought to cause distress or disability that is not expected as part of normal development or culture. The recognition and understanding of mental disorders has changed over time and...
to
alcoholismAlcoholism is a term with multiple and sometimes conflicting definitions. In common and historic usage, alcoholism is any condition that results in the continued consumption of alcoholic beverages, despite health problems and negative social consequences...
.
Another component of the Nazi programme of creating racial purity was the
LebensbornLebensborn was a Nazi organization set up by SS leader Heinrich Himmler, which provided maternity homes and financial assistance to the wives of SS members and to unmarried mothers, and which also ran orphanages and relocation programmes for children.Initially set up in Germany in 1935, Lebensborn...
, or "Fountain of Life" programme founded in 1936. The programme was aimed at encouraging German soldiers—mainly SS—to reproduce. This included offering SS families support services (including the adoption of racially pure children into suitable SS families) and accommodating racially-valuable women, pregnant with mainly SS men's children, in care homes in Germany and throughout Occupied Europe. Lebensborn also expanded to encompass the placing of racially pure children forcibly seized from occupied countries—such as Poland—with German families.
The Nazis considered Jews, Romani people,
PolesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a Western Slavic ethnic group of Central Europe, living predominantly in Poland. Poles are sometimes defined as people who share a common Polish culture and are of Polish descent. Their religion is predominantly Roman Catholic...
along with other Slavic people like the
RussiansThe Russian people are an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
,
UkrainiansUkrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group primarily living in Ukraine, or more broadly—citizens of Ukraine...
, Czechs and anyone else who was not an "
AryanThe Aryan race is a concept historically influential in European culture in the period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It derives from the idea that the original speakers of the Indo-European languages and their descendants up to the present day constitute a distinctive race...
" according to the contemporary Nazi race terminology to be
subhumanUntermensch is a term from Nazi racial ideology used to describe "inferior people", especially "the masses from the East," that is Jews, Gypsies, Poles along with other Slavic people like the Russians, Ukrainians and anyone else who was not an "Aryan" according to the contemporary Nazi race...
. The Nazis rationalized that the GermansThe German people are an ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common German culture, descent, and speaking the German language as a mother tongue. Within Germany, Germans are defined by citizenship , distinguished from people of German ancestry...
, being a super human (Übermenschlich
) race, had a biological right to displace, eliminate and enslave inferiors. After the war, under the "Big Plan", Generalplan OstGeneralplan Ost was a secret Nazi plan of genocide and ethnic cleansing to be realised in the territories occupied by Germany in Eastern Europe during World War II...
foresaw the eventual expulsion of more than 50 million non-GermanizedGermanisation is either the spread of the German language, people and culture either by force or assimilation, or the adaptation of a foreign word to the German language in linguistics, much like the Romanisation of many languages which do not use the Latin alphabet...
Slavs of Eastern Europe through forced migration, as well as some of the BaltsThe Balts or Baltic peoples , defined as speakers of one of the Baltic languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family, are descended from a group of Indo-European tribes who settled the area between lower Vistula and upper Daugava and Dnieper rivers on the southeast shore of the Baltic Sea...
, beyond the Ural Mountains and into SiberiaSiberia , is the vast region constituting almost all of Northern Asia and for the most part currently serving as the massive central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, having served in the same capacity previously for the USSR from its beginning, and the Russian Empire beginning in the...
. In their place, Germans would be settled in an extended "living space"served as a major motivation for Nazi Germany's territorial aggression, was a reinterpretation of the by then century-old concept of Drang nach Osten...
of the 1000-Year Empire.
Herbert BackeHerbert Backe was a German politician and SS-Obergruppenführer war criminal.He was born in Batumi, Georgia. He performed duties in the Third Reich government and was named Minister of Food in May 1942 and Minister of Agriculture in April 1944...
was one of the orchestrators of the
Hunger PlanThe Hunger Plan was an economic management scheme that was put in place to ensure that Germans were given priority over food supplies, at the expense of everyone else. Featured as part of the planning phase of the Wehrmacht invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941...
- the plan to starve tens of millions of Slavs in order to ensure steady food supplies for the German people and troops.
At the outset of
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the German authority in the
General GovernmentThe General Government refers to a part of the territories of Poland under German military occupation during World War II and that were a separate part of "Greater Germany"...
in occupied Poland ordered that all Jews face compulsory labour and that those who were physically incapable such as women and children were to be confined to ghettos.
To the Nazis a number of ideas appeared on how to answer the
"Jewish Question"The so-called Jewish question encompasses the issues and resolutions, surrounding the historic unequal civil, legal and national status of minority Ashkenazi Jews, particularly in Europe...
. One method was a mass forced deportation of Jews.
Adolf EichmannOtto Adolf Eichmann , sometimes referred to as "the architect of the Holocaust", was a Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer...
suggested that Jews be forced to emigrate to
PalestinePalestine is a conventional name used, among others, to describe a geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands.As a geographical term, Palestine can also refer to 'ancient Palestine,' an area...
.
Franz RademacherFranz Rademacher was an official in the Nazi government of the Third Reich during World War II, known for initiating action on the Madagascar Plan.-Nazi Beginnings:...
made the proposal that Jews be deported to Madagascar; this proposal was supported by Himmler and was discussed by Hitler and Italian dictator
Benito MussoliniBenito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini,
KSMOM GCTE was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism. He became the Prime Minister of Italy in 1922 and began using the title Il Duce by...
but was later dismissed as impractical in 1942. The idea of continuing deportations to occupied Poland was rejected by the governor,
Hans FrankHans Michael Frank was a German lawyer who worked for the Nazi party during the 1920s and 1930s and later became a high-ranking official in Nazi Germany. He was prosecuted during the Nuremberg trials for his role in perpetrating the Holocaust during his tenure as Governor-General of occupied Poland...
, of the
General GovernmentThe General Government refers to a part of the territories of Poland under German military occupation during World War II and that were a separate part of "Greater Germany"...
of occupied Poland as Frank refused to accept any more deportations of Jews to the territory which already had large numbers of Jews. In 1942, at the
Wannsee ConferenceThe Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior officials of the Nazi German regime, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The purpose of the conference was to inform administrative leaders of Departments responsible for various policies relating to Jews, that Reinhard Heydrich...
, Nazi officials decided to eliminate the Jews altogether, as discussed the "
Final SolutionThe Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the final, most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
of the Jewish Question". Concentration camps like Auschwitz were converted and used gas chambers to kill as many Jews as possible. By 1945, a number of concentration camps had been liberated by Allied forces and they found the survivors to be severely malnourished. The Allies also found evidence that the Nazis were profiteering from the mass murder of Jews not only by confiscating their property and personal valuables but also by extracting gold fillings from the bodies of some Jews held in concentration camps.
Education
Education under the Nazi regime focused on racial biology, population policy, culture, geography and especially physical fitness. Anti-Semitic policy led to the expulsion of Jewish teachers and professors and officials from the education system. All university professors were required to be a member of the National Socialist Association of University Lecturers in order to be able to be employed as professors.
Social Welfare
Recent research by academics such as
Götz AlyGötz Aly is a German journalist, historian and social scientist.-Biography:After attending the German School of Journalists, Aly studied history and political science in Berlin...
has emphasized the role of the extensive Nazi social welfare programs that focused on providing employment for German citizens and insuring a minimal living standard for German citizens. Heavily focused on was the idea of a national German community. To aid the fostering of a feeling of community, the German people's labour and entertainment experiences—from festivals, to vacation trips and traveling cinemas—were all made a part of the "Strength through Joy" (
Kraft durch FreudeKraft durch Freude was a large state-controlled leisure organization in the Third Reich, a part of the German Labour Front , the national German labour organization at that time...
, KdF) program. Also crucial to the building of loyalty and comradeship was the implementation of the National Labour Service and the
Hitler YouthThe Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party. It existed from 1922 to 1945. The HJ was the second oldest paramilitary Nazi group, founded one year after its adult counterpart, the Sturmabteilung .-Origins:The first NSDAP-related organization of German youth was the Jugendbund...
Organization, with compulsory membership. In addition to this, a number of architectural projects were undertaken. KdF created the KdF-wagen, later known as the
VolkswagenThe Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft , also known as Volkswagen Group or as VW, is an automobile manufacturer and mobility organisation based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany and is the pioneer brand within the Volkswagen Group, which contains the car brands Audi AG, Bentley Motors Ltd.,...
(People's Car), which was designed to be an automobile that every German citizen would be able to afford. The KdF wagon also was created in the idea that it could be converted to a military vehicle for war. Another national project undertaken was the construction of the
AutobahnAutobahn is the German word for a major high-speed road restricted to motor vehicles capable of driving at least 60 km/h and having full control of access, similar to a motorway or freeway in English-speaking countries.In most countries, it usually refers to the German autobahn specifically...
, which made it the first
freewayA freeway is a type of road designed for safer high-speed operation of motor vehicles through the elimination of at-grade intersections. This is accomplished by preventing access to and from adjacent properties and eliminating all cross traffic through the use of grade separations and...
system in the world.
Health
According to the research of
Robert N. ProctorRobert Neel Proctor is an American historian of science and Professor of the History of Science at Stanford University. While a professor of the history of science at Pennsylvania State University in 1999, he became the first historian to testify against the tobacco industry.At Pennsylvania State...
for his book The Nazi War on Cancer, Nazi Germany had arguably the
most powerful anti-tobacco movementAfter German doctors became the first to identify the link between smoking and lung cancer, Nazi Germany initiated a strong anti-tobacco movement and led the first public anti-smoking campaign in modern history...
in the world. Anti-tobacco research received a strong backing from the government, and German scientists proved that cigarette smoke could cause cancer. German pioneering research on experimental
epidemiologyEpidemiology is the study of factors affecting the health and illness of populations, and serves as the foundation and logic of interventions made in the interest of public health and preventive medicine...
lead to the 1939 paper by Franz H. Müller, and the 1943 paper by Eberhard Schairer and Erich Schöniger which convincingly demonstrated that tobacco smoking was a main culprit in
lung cancerLung cancer is a disease of uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. This growth may lead to metastasis, which is the invasion of adjacent tissue and infiltration beyond the lungs. The vast majority of primary lung cancers are carcinomas of the lung, derived from epithelial cells...
. The government urged German doctors to counsel patients against tobacco use.
German research on the dangers of tobacco was silenced after the war, and the dangers of tobacco had to be rediscovered by American and English scientists in the early 1950s, with a medical consensus arising in the early 1960s. German scientists also proved that
asbestosAsbestos is a naturally occurring silicate mineral with long, thin fibrous crystals. The word asbestos is a borrowed Greek adjective meaning inextinguishable. The Greeks termed asbestos the miracle mineral because of its soft and pliant properties, as well as its ability to withstand...
was a health hazard, and in 1943—as the first nation in the world to offer such a benefit—Germany recognized the diseases caused by asbestos, e.g., lung cancer, as occupational illnesses eligible for compensation. The German asbestos-cancer research was later used by American lawyers doing battle against the
Johns-ManvilleJohns-Manville is an American corporation based in Denver, Colorado that manufactures insulation, roofing materials, and engineered products. The stock was included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average from January 29, 1930 to August 27, 1982 when it was replaced by American Express. Berkshire...
Corporation.
As part of the general public-health campaign in Nazi Germany, water supplies were cleaned up,
leadLead is a main-group element with symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal, also considered to be one of the heavy metals. Lead has a bluish-white color when freshly cut, but tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed to air...
and
mercuryMercury , also called quicksilver or hydrargyrum , is a chemical element with the symbol Hg and atomic number 80...
were removed from consumer products, and women were urged to undergo regular screenings for
breast cancerBreast cancer is a cancer that starts in the breast, usually in the inner lining of the milk ducts or lobules. There are different types of breast cancer, with different stages , aggressiveness, and genetic makeup. With best treatment, 10-year disease-free survival varies from 98% to 10%...
.
Women's rights
The Nazis opposed women's feminist movement, claiming that it was Jewish-led, had a left-wing agenda (compared to Communism) and was bad for both women and men. The Nazi regime advocated a patriarchial society in which German women would recognize the "world is her husband, her family, her children, and her home." Hitler claimed that women taking vital jobs away from men during the
Great DepressionThe Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
was economically bad for families in that women were paid only 66 percent of what men earned. This being said, Hitler never considered endorsing the idea of raising women's wages to avoid such a scenario again, but instead called for women to stay at home. Simultaneously with calling for women to leave work outside the home, the regime called for women to be actively supportive of the state regarding women's affairs. In 1933, Hitler appointed
Gertrud Scholtz-KlinkGertrud Scholtz-Klink was a fervent National Socialist German Workers Party member and Reichs Women's Leader....
as the Reich Women's Leader, who instructed women that their primary role in society was to bear children and that women should be subservient to men, once saying "the mission of woman is to minister in the home and in her profession to the needs of life from the first to last moment of man's existence.". The expectation even applied to Aryan women married to Jewish men—a necessary ingredient in the 1943
Rosenstrasse protestThe Rosenstrasse protest was a nonviolent protest in Rosenstrasse in Berlin in February and March 1943, carried out by the non-Jewish wives and relatives of Jewish men who had been arrested for deportation. The protests escalated until the men were released...
in which 1800 German women (joined by 4200 relatives) obliged the Nazi state to release their Jewish husbands.
The Nazi regime discouraged women from seeking higher education in secondary schools, universities and colleges. The number of women allowed to enroll in universities dropped drastically under the Nazi regime, which shrank from approximately 128,000 women being enrolled in 1933 to 51,000 in 1938. Female enrollment in secondary schools dropped from 437,000 in 1926 to 205,000 in 1937. However with the requirement of men to be enlisted into the German armed forces during the war, women made up half of the enrollment in the education system by 1944.
Organizations were made for the indoctrination of Nazi values to German women. Such organizations included the Jungmädel
(Young Girls) section of the Hitler Youth for girls from the age 10 to 14, the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM, German Girl's League) for young women from 14 to 18.
On the issue of sexual affairs regarding women, the Nazis differed greatly from the restrictive stances on women's role in society. The Nazi regime promoted a liberal code of conduct as regards sexual matters, and were sympathetic to women bearing children out of wedlock. The collapse of 19th century morals in Germany accelerated during the Third Reich, partly due to the Nazis, and greatly due to the effects of the war. Promiscuity increased greatly as the war progressed, with unmarried soldiers often involved intimately with several women simultaneously. Married women were often involved in multiple affairs simultaneously, with soldiers, civilians or slave labourers.
"Some farm wives in
WürttembergWürttemberg , formerly known as Wirtemberg, is an area and a former state in southwestern Germany, including parts of the regions Swabia and Franconia....
had already begun using sex as a commodity, employing carnal favours as a means of getting a full day's work from foreign labourers.".
Marriage or sexual relations between a person considered “Aryan” and one that was not were classified as Rassenschande were forbidden and under penalty (people found guilty could face concentration camp, while non-Aryans death penalty).
Despite the somewhat official restrictions, some women forged highly visible, as well as officially praised, achievements. Examples are aviatrix
Hanna ReitschHanna Reitsch was a German aviator and the only woman awarded the Iron Cross First Class and the Luftwaffe Combined Pilots-Observation Badge in Gold with Diamonds during World War II. Reitsch was the first woman to fly a helicopter, a rocket plane, and a jet fighter...
and film director
Leni RiefenstahlHelene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...
.
An example of the almost cynical way in which Nazi doctrines differed from practice is that, whilst sexual relationships among campers was explicitly forbidden, boys' and girls' camps of the Hitlerjugend associations were needlessly placed close together as if to make it happen. Pregnancy (including repercussions on established marriages) often resulted when fetching members of the Bund Deutscher Mädel were assigned to duties which juxtaposed them with tempted men.
Abortion was heavily penalized in Nazi Germany unless on the grounds of "racial health", from 1943 abortionists faced the death penalty. Display of contraceptives was not allowed and Hitler himself described contraception as "violation of nature, as degradation of womanhood, motherhood and love."
Environmentalism
In 1935 the regime enacted the "Reich Nature Protection Act". While not a purely Nazi piece of legislation since parts of its influences pre-dated the Nazi rise to power, it nevertheless reflected Nazi ideology. The concept of the Dauerwald (best translated as the "perpetual forest") which included concepts such as forest management and protection was promoted and efforts were also made to curb air-pollution.
In practice, the enacted laws and policies met resistance from various ministries that sought to undermine them, and from the priority that the war-effort took to environmental protection.
Animal protection policy
Although the Third Reich was unfriendly to some people, it was widely friendly for animals and the Nazis took several measures to ensure protection of animals. In 1933 the regime enacted a stringent animal-protection law.
Many
NSDAP leaders including
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , popularly known as the Nazi Party...
and
Hermann GöringHermann Wilhelm Göring was a German politician, military leader and a leading member of the Nazi Party. Among many offices, he was Hitler's designated successor and commander of the Luftwaffe...
were supporters of animal protection. Several Nazis were environmentalists, and species protection and
animal welfareAnimal welfare, the health and well-being of animals, represents a systematic concern for people who believe that nonhuman animals are sentient beings that deserve consideration, respect, and care...
were significant issues in the regime.
Heinrich HimmlerHeinrich Luitpold Himmler , one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany, served as Chief of the German Police and Minister of the Interior...
made efforts to ban the hunting of animals. Göring was an animal lover and
conservationistThe conservation of forests also known as nature conservation is a political and social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including plant and animal species as well as their habitat for the future....
. The current animal welfare laws in
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
are more or less modification of the laws introduced by the National socialist regime.
Culture
The regime sought to restore traditional values in German culture. The art and culture that came to define the Weimar Republic years was repressed. The visual arts were strictly monitored and traditional, focusing on exemplifying Germanic themes, racial purity,
militarismMilitarism is the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests....
, heroism, power, strength, and obedience. Modern
abstract artAbstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
and
avant-garde artAvant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English, to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
was removed from museums and put on special display as "
degenerate artDegenerate art is the English translation of the German entartete Kunst, a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or Jewish Bolshevist in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were...
", where it was to be ridiculed. In one notable example, on 31 March 1937, huge crowds stood in line to view a special display of "degenerate art" in Munich. Art forms considered to be degenerate included
DadaDada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zürich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
,
CubismCubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music and literature. The first branch of cubism, known as "Analytic Cubism", was both radical and influential as...
,
ExpressionismExpressionism was a cultural movement originating in Germany at the start of the 20th-century as a reaction to positivism and other artistic movements such as naturalism and impressionism. It sought to express the meaning of "being alive" and emotional experience rather than physical reality...
,
FauvismLes Fauves were a short-lived and loose grouping of early 20th century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...
,
ImpressionismImpressionism was a 19th-century art movement that began as a loose association of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence in the 1870s and 1880s...
,
New ObjectivityThe New Objectivity , was an art movement that arose in Germany in the early 1920s as an outgrowth of, and in opposition to, expressionism. The movement essentially ended in 1933 with the fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazis to power...
, and
SurrealismSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
. Literature written by Jewish, other non-Aryans, or authors opposed to the Nazis was destroyed by the regime. The most infamous destruction of literature was the book burnings by German students in 1933.
Despite the official attempt to forge a pure Germanic culture, one major area of the arts, architecture, under Hitler's personal guidance, was
neoclassicalNeoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, both as a reaction against the Rococo style of anti-tectonic naturalistic ornament, and an outgrowth of some classicizing features of Late Baroque...
, a style based on
architecture of ancient RomeThe architecture of Ancient Rome at first adopted the external Greek architecture for their own purposes, which were so different from Greek buildings as to create a new architectural style. The two styles are often considered one body of classical architecture...
. This style stood out in stark contrast and opposition to newer, more liberal, and more popular architecture styles of the time such as
Art DecoArt Deco was a popular international art design movement from 1925 until the 1940s, affecting the decorative arts such as architecture, interior design, and industrial design, as well as the visual arts such as fashion, painting, the graphic arts, and film...
. Various Roman buildings were examined by state architect
Albert SpeerAlbert Speer was a German architect who was, for part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Speer was Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming ministerial office...
for architectural designs for state buildings. Speer constructed huge and imposing structures such as in the Nazi party rally grounds in
NurembergNuremberg is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. It is situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal and is Franconia's largest city. It is located about 170 kilometres north of Munich, at 49.27° N 11.5° E. The population is...
and the new
Reich ChancelleryThe Reich Chancellery was the traditional name of the office of the German Chancellor . Today the office is usually called Kanzleramt , or more formally Bundeskanzleramt ....
building in
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
. One design that was pursued, but never built, was a gigantic version of the
PantheonThe Pantheon is a building in...
in
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
, called the
VolkshalleThe ' , also called ' or ' , was a huge monumental building planned, but never built, by Adolf Hitler and his architect Albert Speer.The word Volk had a particular resonance in Nazi thinking...
to be the semi-religious centre of Nazism in a renamed Berlin called
GermaniaWelthauptstadt Germania was the name Adolf Hitler gave to the projected renewal of the German capital Berlin, part of his vision for the future of Germany after the planned victory in World War II...
, which was to be the "world capital" (Welthauptstadt). Also to be constructed was a
Triumphal archA triumphal arch is a structure in the shape of a monumental archway, in theory built to celebrate a victory in war, but often used to celebrate a ruler....
several times larger than that found in Paris, which was also based upon a classical styling. Many of the designs for Germania were impractical to construct because of their size and the marshy soil underneath Berlin; materials that were to be used for construction were diverted to the war effort.
Cinema and media
The majority of German films of the period were intended principally as works of entertainment. The import of foreign films was legally restricted after 1936 and the German industry, which was effectively nationalised in 1937, had to make up for the missing foreign films (above all American productions). Entertainment also became increasingly important in the later years of
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
when the cinema provided a distraction from Allied bombing and a string of German defeats. In both 1943 and 1944 cinema admissions in Germany exceeded a billion, and the biggest
box officeA box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to a venue. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall, or at a wicket...
hits of the war years were
Die große LiebeDie grosse Liebe or Die große Liebe is a German propaganda drama film of the National Socialist period, made by Rolf Hansen, starring Zarah Leander and Viktor Staal...
(1942) and WunschkonzertWunschkonzert is a German propaganda drama film by Eduard von Borsody made in 1940 which, after Die grosse Liebe, was the most popular film of wartime Germany.- Plot :...
(1941), which both combine elements of the musicalThe musical film is a film genre in which several songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative. The songs are usually used to advance the plot or develop the film's characters, but some musical films simply plop the songs in as unrelated "specialties" - as with Carmen Miranda's...
, wartime romance and patriotic propaganda, Frauen sind doch bessere Diplomaten
(1941), a comic musical which was one of the earliest German films in colour, and Wiener BlutWiener Blut may refer to:*Wiener Blut , a waltz by Johann Strauss II*Wiener Blut , an operetta by Johann Strauss II*Wiener Blut , an album by Falco*Wiener Blut , a song by Rammstein...
(1942), the adaptation of a Johann Strauß comic operettaOperetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Operetta in French:...
. The importance of the cinema as a tool of the state, both for its propaganda value and its ability to keep the populace entertained, can be seen in the filming history of Veit HarlanVeit Harlan was a German film director and actor.-Biography:After studying under Max Reinhardt, he first appeared on the stage in 1915 and, after World War I, worked in the Berlin stage. In 1922 he married Jewish actress and cabaret singer Dora Gerson; the couple divorced in 1924...
's KolbergKolberg is a 1945 German propaganda film directed by Veit Harlan and Wolfgang Liebeneiner. It opened on January 30, 1945 simultaneously in Berlin and to the crew of the naval base at La Rochelle. It was also screened in the Reich chancellery after the broadcast of Hitler's last radio address on...
(1945), the most expensive film of the era, for the shooting of which tens of thousands of soldiers were diverted from their military positions to appear as extras.
Despite the emigration of many film-makers and the political restrictions, the German
film industryThe film industry consists of the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking: i.e. film production companies, film studios, cinematography, film production, screenwriting, pre-production, post production, film festivals, distribution; and actors, film directors and other film...
was not without technical and aesthetic innovations, the introduction of
AgfacolorAgfacolor is a series of color photographic products produced by Agfa of Germany. It was originally introduced in 1932 as a 'screen plate' version, similar to the Autochrome process, but in late 1936 Agfa introduced Agfacolor-Neu transparency film. This technique is based on the patent no. 253335...
film production being a notable example. Technical and aesthetic achievement could also be turned to the specific ends of the Greater German Reich, most spectacularly in the work of
Leni RiefenstahlHelene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...
. Riefenstahl's
Triumph of the WillTriumph of the Will is a propaganda film made by Leni Riefenstahl. It chronicles the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg. The film contains excerpts from speeches given by various Nazi leaders at the Congress, including portions of speeches by Adolf Hitler, interspersed with footage of massed...
(1935), documenting the Nuremberg RallyThe Nuremberg Rally was the annual rally of the NSDAP in the years 1923 to 1938 in Germany. Especially after Hitler's rise to power in 1933, they were large propaganda events by the state...
(1934), and OlympiaOlympia is a 1938 film by Leni Riefenstahl documenting the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. The movie was produced in two parts: Olympia 1. Teil — Fest der Völker and Olympia 2. Teil — Fest der Schönheit . It was the first documentary film on the Olympic Games ever made...
(1938), documenting the 1936 Summer OlympicsThe 1936 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad, an international multi-sport event which was held in 1936 in Berlin, Germany. Berlin won the bid to host the Games over Barcelona, Spain on April 26, 1931, at the 29th IOC Session in Barcelona...
, pioneered techniques of camera movement and editing that have influenced many later films. Both films, particularly Triumph of the Will, remain highly controversial, as their aesthetic merit is inseparable from their propagandizing of Nationalsocialism ideals.
Sports
Established in 1934, the Nationalsozialistischer Reichsbund für Leibesübungen
(NSRL), (sometimes also known under the acronym NSRBL) was the
umbrella organizationAn umbrella organization is an association of institutions, who work together formally to coordinate activities or pool resources. In business, political, or other environments, one group, the umbrella organization, provides resources and often an identity to the smaller organizations...
for sports during the Third Reich.
Two major displays of Nazi German art and culture were at the
1936 Summer OlympicsThe 1936 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad, an international multi-sport event which was held in 1936 in Berlin, Germany. Berlin won the bid to host the Games over Barcelona, Spain on April 26, 1931, at the 29th IOC Session in Barcelona...
and at the German pavilion at the
1937 International ExpositionThe Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne was held in 1937 in Paris, France. The Musée de l'Homme was created at this occasion.-Exhibitions:...
in Paris. The 1936 Olympics was meant to display to the world the Aryan superiority of Germany to other nations. German athletes were carefully chosen not only for strength but for Aryan appearance. However, one common belief of Hitler snubbing African-American athlete
Jesse OwensJames Cleveland "Jesse" Owens was an American track and field athlete. He participated in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, where he achieved international fame by winning four gold medals: one each in the 100 metres, the 200 metres, the long jump, and as part of the 4x100 meter relay...
has recently been discovered to be technically incorrect—it was African-American athlete
Cornelius Cooper JohnsonCornelius Cooper Johnson was an African-American athlete in the high jump.Born in Los Angeles in 1913, Cornelius Johnson first competed in organized track and field events at Berendo Junior High School...
who was believed to have been snubbed by Hitler, who left the medal ceremonies after awarding a German and a Finn medal. Hitler claimed it was not a snub, but that he had official business to attend to which caused him to depart. On reports that Hitler had deliberately avoided acknowledging his victories, and had refused to shake his hand, Owens recounted:
"When I passed the Chancellor he arose, waved his hand at me, and I waved back at him. I think the writers showed bad taste in criticizing the man of the hour in Germany." He also stated: "Hitler didn't snub me — it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram."
Hitler was criticized for this and the Olympic committee officials insisted that he greet each and every medalist, or none at all. Hitler did not attend any of the medal presentations which followed, including the one after Jesse Owens won his four medals, and met with German winners outside the stadium afterwards.
See also
History
- History of Germany
The history of Germany begins with Germania, the name given by the Romans to the area north of the Danube and east of the Rhine up to the Vistula, which was inhabited mostly by Germanic tribes and some Celts, with Slavic tribes arriving centuries later. The victory of the Germanic tribes in the...
- Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a union of territories in Central Europe during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period under a Holy Roman Emperor. The first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was Otto I, crowned in 962. The last was Francis II, who abdicated and dissolved the Empire in 1806 during...
- German Empire
The German Empire is the name commonly used in English to describe Germany from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871 to 1918, when it became a German republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of Wilhelm II .The term Second Reich...
- Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government, named after Weimar, the place where the constitutional assembly took place. Its official name was still Deutsches Reich , however...
- Glossary of the Third Reich
This is a list of words, terms, concepts, and slogans that were specifically used in Nazi Germany.Some words were coined by Adolf Hitler and other Nazi Party members...
Politics
- Anschluss
The ' , also known as the ', was the 1938 de facto annexation of Austria into Greater Germany by the Nazi regime....
- German Resistance
The German Resistance was the opposition by individuals and groups in Nazi Germany to the regime of Adolf Hitler between 1933 and 1945. Some of these engaged in active plans to remove Hitler from power and overthrow his regime...
- Sino-German cooperation (1911–1941)
- New Order (political system)
New Order is the name used to denote the political, economic, and social system which the Nazis hoped to establish in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. The establishment of the New Order was proclaimed by Adolf Hitler in 1940...
- Collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II
Society
- Art of the Third Reich
- Architecture of the Third Reich
Nazi architecture was an architectural plan and integral part of the Nazi party's plans to create a cultural and spiritual rebirth in Germany as part of the Third Reich....
- Education in the Third Reich
- Music in the Third Reich
- Symbols of the Third Reich
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form or its mirrored left-facing form. Archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates from the Neolithic period and was first found in the Indus Valley Civilization of the Indian...
- Military decorations of the Third Reich
Links
- The Third Reich
- Third Reich in Ruins (Photos)
- Lebendiges Museum Online (In German
German is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
)
Further reading
- William Sheridan Allen
William Sheridan Allen was born in Evanston, Illinois, and studied at the universities of Michigan, Connecticut, and Minnesota, and in Germany at the Free University of Berlin and the University of Göttingen. The Nazi Seizure of Power was his first book...
. The Nazi Seizure of Power : the Experience Of A Single German Town, 1922–1945 by New York ; Toronto: F. Watts, 1984. ISBN 0-531-09935-0.
- Gisela Bock
Gisela Bock is a German feminist historian. She was born in Karlsruhe, Germany. Her father was a chemist. She has taught at the Free University of Berlin , the European University Institute in Florence, Italy and at the University of Bielefeld...
"Racism and Sexism in Nazi Germany: Motherhood, Compulsory Sterilization, and the State" from When Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany edited by Renate Bridenthal, Atina Grossmann, and Marion Kaplan, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1984.
- Karl Dietrich Bracher
Karl Dietrich Bracher is a German political scientist and historian of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. Born in Stuttgart, Bracher was awarded a Ph.D. in the Classics by the University of Tübingen in 1948 and subsequently studied at Harvard University between 1949–1950...
. The German Dictatorship; The Origins, Structure, and Effects of National Socialism; New York, Praeger 1970.
- Michael Burleigh. The Third Reich: A New History, 2002. ISBN 0-8090-9326-X. Standard scholarly history, 1918–1945.
- Martin Broszat
Martin Broszat was a German historian specializing in modern German social history whose work has been described by The Encyclopedia of Historians as indispenable for any serious study of the Third Reich. Broszat was born in Leipzig, Germany and studied history at the University of Leipzig and at...
. German National Socialism, 1919–1945 translated from the German by Kurt Rosenbaum and Inge Pauli Boehm, Santa Barbara, Calif.: Clio Press, 1966.
- Martin Broszat
Martin Broszat was a German historian specializing in modern German social history whose work has been described by The Encyclopedia of Historians as indispenable for any serious study of the Third Reich. Broszat was born in Leipzig, Germany and studied history at the University of Leipzig and at...
. The Hitler State: The Foundation and Development Of The Internal Structure Of The Third Reich. Translated by John W. Hiden. London: Longman, 1981. ISBN 0-582-49200-9.
- Richard J. Evans
Richard John Evans FBA FRSL is a British historian of Germany.-Life:He was born in London, of Welsh parentage, and is now Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Gonville & Caius College. Evans applied for the distinguished Cambridge position whereas his...
. The Coming of the Third Reich. ISBN 0-14-100975-6, standard scholarly history to 1933
- Richard J. Evans
Richard John Evans FBA FRSL is a British historian of Germany.-Life:He was born in London, of Welsh parentage, and is now Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Gonville & Caius College. Evans applied for the distinguished Cambridge position whereas his...
. The Third Reich in Power 2005 ISBN 1-59420-074-2, scholarly history
- Paul Garson
Paul Garson is an American writer and photographer. He has contributed to many magazines and periodicals both in the U.S. and overseas. He has published both fiction and nonfiction books as well as written two screenplays that have been produced. His PR and Marketing projects including several...
. Album of the Damned: Snapshots from the Third Reich 2008 ISBN 978-0897335768, Academy Chicago Publishers
- Richard Grunberger
Richard Grunberger was a British historian, who specialised in study of the Third Reich.He was born in Austria to Jewish parents. After the 1938 Anschluss with Hitler's Germany, he was put on the first Kindertransport train to leave Vienna. He was initially housed in a refugee camp at Lowestoft in...
. A Social History of the Third Reich 1974 ISBN 0-14-013675-4.
- Klaus Hildebrand
Klaus Hildebrand is a German conservative historian whose area of expertise is 19th-20th German political and military history.- Biography :...
. The Third Reich London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1984 ISBN 0-04-943033-5.
- Andreas Hillgruber
Andreas Fritz Hillgruber was a conservative West German historian.Hillgruber was, for most of his life, widely influential within historical circles as a military and diplomatic historian. At his death in 1989, the American historian Francis L...
Germany and the two World Wars, Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1981 ISBN 0-674-35321-8.
- Heinz Höhne
Heinz Höhne is a German journalist who specializes in Nazi and intelligence history. Born in Berlin in 1926 and educated there until he was called to fight during the last months of the Second World War. After the war, he studied journalism in Munich and went on to work for various newspapers as a...
. The Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS. Translated by Richard Barry. London: Penguin Books, 1971.
- David Irving
David John Cawdell Irving is a British writer specializing in the military history of World War II. His interpretations of Nazi Germany have proved highly controversial due to allegations of undue sympathy for the Third Reich and antisemitism, and because of his involvement in the Holocaust denial...
. Hitler's War. London: Focal Point Publications. ISBN 1-872197-10-8.
- Adam Tooze
Adam Tooze is a British historian and Reader in Modern European Economic History at the University of Cambridge. In 2002, he was awarded a .He is currently best known for his economic study of the Third Reich, entitled The Wages of Destruction...
. The Wages of Destruction: The Making and the Breaking of the Nazi Economy. New York: Viking, 2006. ISBN 978-0-670-03826-8.
- Ian Kershaw
Sir Ian Kershaw is a British historian of 20th-century Germany whose work has chiefly focused on the period of the Third Reich...
. The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, 4th ed. London: Arnold, 2000. ISBN 0-340-76028-1
- Claudia Koonz
Claudia Ann Koonz is an American feminist historian of Nazi Germany. Her principle area of interest is the experience of women during the Nazi era....
. Mothers In The Fatherland: Women, the Family, and Nazi Politics. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987. ISBN 0-312-54933-4.
- Claudia Koonz
Claudia Ann Koonz is an American feminist historian of Nazi Germany. Her principle area of interest is the experience of women during the Nazi era....
. The Nazi Conscience. Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003.
- Guido Knopp
Guido Knopp is a German journalist, author and historian. He is a well known historian in Germany, mainly because he has produced a great number of TV documentaries, predominantly about the "Third Reich" and National Socialism, but also about other topics, such as Stalinism.- Life and work :After...
. Hitler's Henchmen. 1998. Sutton Publishing, 2005. ISBN 0-7509-3781-5.
- Christian Leitz, ed. The Third Reich: The Essential Readings. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. ISBN 0-631-20700-7.
- Richard Overy
Richard Overy is a British historian who has published extensively on the history of World War II and the Third Reich. In 2007 as The Times editor of Complete History of the World he chose the 50 key dates of world history....
& Timothy MasonTimothy Wright Mason was a British Marxist historian of Nazi Germany.-Life and work:He was born in Birkenhead, the child of school-teachers and was educated at Birkenhead School and Oxford University. He taught at Oxford from 1971–1984 and was twice married. He helped to found the...
"Debate: Germany, “Domestic Crisis” and War in 1939" pages 200–240 from Past and Present, Number 122, February 1989.
- Frank McDonough, Hitler and the Rise of The Nazi Party, Pearson Longman, 2003.
- Eric Michaud, The Cult of Art in Nazi Germany, translated by Janet Lloyd, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-804-74327-4.
- Hans Mommsen
Hans Mommsen is a left-wingGerman historian. He is the twin brother of Wolfgang Mommsen.-Biography:He was born in Marburg, the son of the historian Wilhelm Mommsen and great-grandson of the Roman historian Theodor Mommsen. He studied German, history and philosophy at the University of Heidelberg,...
. From Weimar to Auschwitz Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991. ISBN 0-691-03198-3.
- Roger Moorhouse
Roger Moorhouse is a British historian and author. Though born in Stockport, Cheshire, he was raised in Hertfordshire and was educated at Berkhamsted School...
. Killing Hitler. London: Jonathan Cape, 2006. ISBN 0-224-07121-1.
- Detlev Peukert
Detlev Peukert was a left-wing German historian, noted for his studies of the relationship between what he called the "spirit of science" and the Holocaust and in social history and the Weimar Republic. Peukert taught modern history at the University of Essen and served as director of the...
. Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition and Racism in Everyday Life. London: Batsford, 1987. ISBN 0-7134-5217-X.
- Anthony Read. The Devils Disciples. W. W. Norton & Co., 2003. ISBN 0-393-04800-4.
- Hans Rothfels
Hans Rothfels was a conservative German-American nationalist historian.-Life:Rothfels was born to a wealthy Jewish family in Kassel, Hesse-Nassau. In 1910, he converted to Lutheranism. He was studying history and philosophy at Heidelberg University when World War I broke out in 1914. As a student,...
. The German Opposition to Hitler: An Assessment Longwood Pr Ltd: London 1948, 1961, 1963, 1970 ISBN 0-85496-119-4.
- William L. Shirer
William Lawrence Shirer was an American journalist and historian. He became known for his broadcasts on CBS from the German capital of Berlin through the first year of World War II....
. The Rise and Fall of the Third ReichThe Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by journalist William L. Shirer, is the first and most successful, large scale history of Nazi Germany in English for a general audience, first published in 1960 by Simon & Schuster, Inc....
. ISBN 0-671-72868-7
- David Schoenbaum
David Schoenbaum is an American social scientist and historian.He is teaching as a professor of History at the University of Iowa. Schoenbaum received his BA at the University of Wisconsin–Madison...
Hitler’s Social Revolution; Class and Status in Nazi Germany, 1933-1939, Garden City, N.Y. Doubleday, 1966.
- The Nazi Elite edited by Ronald Smelser and Rainer Zitelmann
Rainer Zitelmann is a German historian, journalist and management consultant.- Life :Zitelmann studied history and political sciences at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences and completed his doctorate in 1986 under Prof. Dr...
, translated by Mary Fischer, New York : New York University Press, 1993, ISBN 0814779506.
- Henry Ashby Turner
Henry Ashby Turner, Jr. was an American historian of Germany who was a professor at Yale University for over forty years...
. German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. ISBN 0-19-503492-9.
- Alfred Sohn-Rethel
Alfred Sohn-Rethel was a Marxist economist and philosopher especially interested in epistemology. He also wrote about the relationship of German industry with national socialism.-Life:...
. Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism. London, CSE Bks, 1978. ISBN 0-906336-00-7
- Sir John Wheeler-Bennett
Sir John Wheeler Wheeler-Bennett, GCVO, MCG, OBE, FRSL, FBA, was a conservative British historian of German and diplomatic history.Wheeler-Bennett was born in Keston, Kent, the son of a wealthy importer on 13 October, 1902. He was educated at a school in Westgate on Sea and Malvern College. He did...
. The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics 1918–1945, Palgrave Macmillan: London: 1953, 1964, 2005 ISBN 1-4039-1812-0.
- Christian Zenter and Friedemann Bedurftig. The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich
The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich is a two-volume text edited by Christian Zenter and Friedemann Bedürftig.The Encyclopedia of Third Reich is considered one of the leading source materials for information about Nazi Germany and the reign of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers...
. Munich: Sudwest Verlag GmbH & co. KG.