Nazi Germany

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Großdeutsches Reich Greater German Reich ↓ 1933 – 1945 ↓ Flag National Insignia Motto "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer." "One People, one Reich, one Leader." Anthem first stanza of "Das Lied der Deutschen" followed by "Horst-Wessel-Lied" Nazi Germany to 1943. Capital Berlin Language(s) German Government Single-party state, Totalitarian autocratic national socialist dictatorship, Empire Head of State  - 1925 – 1934 Paul von Hindenburg (President)  - 1934 – 1945 Adolf Hitler (Führer)  - 1945 Karl Dönitz (President) Chancellor  - 1933 – 1945 Adolf Hitler  - 1945 Joseph Goebbels  - 1945 Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk [1] Historical era Interwar period/WWII  - Machtergreifung [2] 30 January, 1933  - Gleichschaltung 27 February 1933  - Anschluss 13 March 1938  - World War II 1 September 1939  - Disestablishment 8 May, 1945 Area  - 1941 (Großdeutschland) [3] 696,265 km² (268,829 sq mi) Population  - 1941 (Großdeutschland) est. 90,030,775       Density 129.3 /km²  (334.9 /sq mi) Currency Reichsmark Preceded by Succeeded by Weimar Republic Saar (League of Nations) First Austrian Republic Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1938)|Czechoslovak Republic Klaipėda Region Free City of Danzig Second Polish Republic Italian Social Republic Eupen-Malmedy Luxembourg Alsace-Lorraine Drava Banovina Allied Occupation Zones in Germany Allied-administered Austria History of Czechoslovakia (1945–1948)|Third Republic of Czechoslovakia People's Republic of Poland|People's Republic of Poland Alsace-Lorraine Eupen-Malmedy Luxembourg Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)|Kingdom of Italy Kaliningrad Oblast Saar protectorate Socialist Republic of Slovenia|People's Republic of Slovenia

Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the colloquial English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). The name Third Reich (Drittes Reich, ‘Third Reich’) refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German Empire of 1871–1918. In German, the state was known as the Deutsches Reich (German Reich) until 1943, when its official name became Großdeutsches Reich (Greater German Reich).

In 1934, Germany's borders were still determined by the Treaty of Versailles, the peace treaty between Germany and the Allied Powers at the end of World War I; to the north, the state was bounded by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east, it was divided into two and bordered Lithuania, The Free City of Danzig, Poland and Czechoslovakia; to the south, it bordered Austria and Switzerland and to the west, it touched France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Rhineland and Saarland. These borders changed after Germany regained control of the Rhineland, Saarland and the Memelland and annexed Austria, the Sudetenland and Bohemia and Moravia. Germany also expanded during World War II, which in Europe, began in 1939 after Germany invaded Poland and the UK and France declared war on Germany.

Under the Nazi regime, millions of Jews and others were persecuted and murdered, particularly during the Second World War, amidst the Holocaust. By 1945, Germany had lost the war and ceased to exist. It was occupied by the victors.^[4]

History

Main article: History of Germany

The Third Reich arose in the wake of the national shame, embarrassment, anger and resentment which resulted from the Treaty of Versailles.^[5]

Versailles, a harsh treaty offered to the vanquished Germans after a brutal war, provided for:

• Germany's acceptance of and admission to sole responsibility for causing World War I^[6]
• the permanent forfeiture of various German territories and the demilitarization of other German territory^[7]
• 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^[8]
• unilateral German disarmament and severe military restrictions^[9]

Other conditions fostering the rise of the Third Reich include nationalism and Pan-Germanism, 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 Weimar period, and the rise of communism in Germany, as reflected by the growth of the KPD, the Communist Party of Germany. 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 traditionalism, 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 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 Dolchstoßlegende ("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 Hindenburg, who opposed the liberal democratic nature of the Weimar Republic and wanted to find a way to make Germany into an authoritarian state.^[10] The natural ally of the foundation of an authoritarian state had been the German National People's Party (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 Reichstag, with 230 seats.^[11] Hindenburg was reluctant to give any substantial power to Hitler, but former chancellor Franz von Papen 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 to form a viable government failed (the Machtergreifung). 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 Hindenburg, as well as intrigue from former Chancellor Franz von Papen, leader of the Catholic Centre Party following his collection of participating financial interests and his own ambitions to combat communism. Even though the Nazis had gained the largest share of the popular vote in the two Reichstag 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.^[12]

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.^[13] This plan was at the core of Adolf Hitler's "cultural revolution".^[13]

Consolidation of power

The new government installed a totalitarian dictatorship in a series of measures in quick succession (see the article on Nazi forced coordination or Gleichschaltung for details).

On the night of 27 February 1933 the Reichstag building was set on fire and Dutch council communist Marinus van der Lubbe 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 camp. 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 Decree, rescinding habeas corpus 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.

March at Reichsparteitag 1935.

Symbols of the Weimar Republic, including the black-red-gold flag (now the present-day flag of Germany), 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-Lied" accompanied by the so-called Hitler salute.

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 (German: Reichsstatthalter). 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 Hamburg (and after 1938, Vienna), Hitler reserved the right to personally appoint the mayors.

Bones of anti-Nazi German women still are in the crematoriums in the German concentration camp at Weimar, Germany. Photo taken by the 3rd U.S. Army, 14 April 1945

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 Führer und Reichskanzler. Until the death of Hindenburg, the army did not follow Hitler, partly because the paramilitary SA 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" to complement the nationalist revolution which had occurred with the ascendance of Hitler. The murder of Ernst Röhm, leader of the SA, in the Night of the Long Knives, the death of Hindenburg, the merger of the SA into the Army and the promise of other expansions of the German military wrought friendlier relations between Hitler and the Army, resulting in a unanimous oath of allegiance by all soldiers to obey Hitler. The Nazis 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 Gestapo, 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"^[14] "Tens of thousands of Germans were killed for one or another form of resistance. Between 1933 and 1945 Special Courts 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."^[15]

World War II

See also: European Theatre of World War II and History of Germany during World War II

German and Axis allies' conquests (in blue) in Europe during 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 Danzig 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 Danzig and the Polish Corridor. Then, the Germans broke off diplomatic relations. Hitler had learned that the Soviet Union was willing to sign a non-aggression pact with Germany and would support an attack on Poland. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939 and two days later, the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany. World War II was underway, but Poland fell quickly, especially after the Soviets attacked Poland on 17 September. The United Kingdom proceeded to bomb Wilhelmshaven, Cuxhaven^[16], Heligoland^[17] 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 Prague and Vienna^[18] but a German attack on the British High Seas fleet was followed by the British bombing the port city of Sylt.^[19] After the Altmark Incident off the coast of Norway and the discovery of the United Kingdom's plans to encircle Germany, Hitler sent troops into Denmark and Norway. This safeguarded iron ore supplies from Sweden through coastal waters. Shortly thereafter, the British and French landed in Mid- and North Norway, but the Germans defeated these forces in the ensuing Norwegian campaign.

In May 1940, the Phony War ended. Against the will of his advisors, Hitler ordered an attack on France through the Low Countries. The Battle of France ended with an overwhelming German victory. However, with the British refusing Hitler's offer of peace, the war continued on.^[20][21]Germany and Britain continued to fight at sea and in the air. However, on August 24, two off-course German bombers accidently bombed London - against Hitler's orders, changing the course of the war.^[22]In response to the attack, the British bombed Berlin, which sent Hitler in a rage. The German leader ordered attacks on British cities, and the UK was bombed heavily during The Blitz.^[23]

Hitler hoped to break British morale and win peace. However, the British refused to back down; eventually, Hitler called off the Battle of Britain strategic bombing campaign in favor of the long-planned invasion of the Soviet Union: Operation Barbarossa. Germany and its allies invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. On the eve of the invasion, Hitler's former deputy, Rudolf Hess, 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 Africa and the Balkans concerned Hitler. In February 1941, the German Afrika Korps was sent to Libya to aid the Italians and hold the British Commonwealth forces from British-held Egypt. As the North African Campaign 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 Yugoslavia 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 Greece, again to bail out the Italians, and the Battle of Crete. 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 Moscow; to the north, troops had reached Leningrad and surrounded the city. Meanwhile, Germany and her allies controlled almost all of mainland Europe, with the exception of neutral Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Vatican City and Monaco.

German U-boat alongside the battlecruiser Scharnhorst

On 11 December 1941, four days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, 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-Lease 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 appeasement 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 warfare, using U-Boats to attack ships without warning.

The goal of Germany's navy, the Kriegsmarine, 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, 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, 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.

Persecution and extermination campaigns

A member of Einsatzgruppe D killing a Jew who is kneeling before a filled mass grave in Vinnitsa, Ukraine, in 1942. The back of the photo is inscribed "The last Jew in Vinnitsa"

The persecution of minorities and "undesirables" continued both in Germany and the occupied countries. From 1941 onward, Jews were required to wear a yellow badge in public and most were transferred to ghettos, where they remained isolated from the rest of the population. In January 1942, at the Wannsee Conference and under the supervision of Reinhard Heydrich, who himself was commanded by Heinrich Himmler, a plan for the "Final Solution 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 genocide is called the Holocaust in English and the Shoah in Hebrew. 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 Soviet and Polish territories and their populations as part of their Generalplan Ost. According to estimates, 20 million Soviet civilians, three million non-Jewish Poles, and seven million Red Army soldiers died because of the Nazis. The Nazis' plan was to extend German Lebensraum ("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^[24]. 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 Schutzstaffel (Waffen-SS) divisions. The Nazi regime intended to eventually "Germanize" the racially-acceptable peoples of the occupied east.

Continued at Nazi Germany, part 2 and Nazi Germany, part 3

See also

Germany Portal

• Wikimedia Atlas of Germany

1. ^ Von Krosigk refused the title Chancellor by Dönitz, his title as head of cabinet of the Flensburg government was Leitender Minister (leading minister)
2. ^ German election, 1933
3. ^ in 1939, before Germany acquired control of the last two regions which had been in its control before the Versailles Treaty, Alsace-Lorraine, Danzig and the part of West Prussia colloquially known as the "Polish Corridor", it had an area was 633786 sq. km., Statistisches Bundesamt (Federal Statistical Office), Statistisches Jahrbuch 2006 für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, p. 34.
4. ^ Keegan, John (1989), The Second World War, Glenfield, Auckland 10, New Zealand: Hutchinson .
5. ^ The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919) concluded the Allies' peace with Austria, which was aligned with Germany during the war via the then-extant Austrian-Hungarian empire. Hungary, another principal belligerent aligned with Germany, was party to the Treaty of Trianon, a separate treaty distinct from St. Germain and Versailles. Hungary and Austria were both formed as republics after the dissolution of the Habsburg's Austrian-Hungarian empire.
6. ^ This was the notorious Article 231, the so-called War Guilt Clause
7. ^ All of Germany's foreign colonies were forfeited. The part of Germany known as the Rhineland, bordering France, was demilitarized: Germany was forbidden to have troops or military installations there.
8. ^ Article 231 of Versailles stipulated that Germany bore sole responsibility for the outbreak of the war.
9. ^ Germany would be limited to an army of 100,000 men, with mandatory lengthy terms of enlistment to prevent the establishment of reserves. The General Staff was to be dissolved along with certain military colleges. Tanks were forbidden. Limits were placed on the navy in the form of the size and types of ships permitted, including the prohibition of any submarines. A military air force was likewise forbidden.
10. ^ Mary Fulbrook. The Divided Nation: A History of Germany, 1918-1990. Oxford UP, 1992, 45
11. ^ The NSDAP did not achieve a parliamentary majority, however, at any time before Hitler obtained the Chancellorship. Their plurality slipped in the November 1932 elections from 230 to 196 seats.
12. ^ Hakim, Joy (1995). A History of Us: War, Peace and all that Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press, 100-104. ISBN 0-19-509514-6. 
13. ^ ^{a b} Richard Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich (New York: Penguin Books, 2003), 441.
14. ^ Henry Maitles NEVER AGAIN!: A review of David Goldhagen, Hitlers Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust", further referenced to G Almond, "The German Resistance Movement", Current History 10 (1946), pp409-527.
15. ^ Peter Hoffmann "The History of the German Resistance, 1933-1945"p.xiii
16. ^ CuHaven Online [1] see also: Die Hessisch-thüringische 251. Infanterie-division, Karl-Wilhelm Maurer, 14. [2]
17. ^ http://www1.ndr.de/kultur/geschichte/helgolandchronik2.html
18. ^ http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/milestones-of-flight/british_military/1940.cfm
19. ^ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,885838,00.html
20. ^ http://www.scguard.com/museum/ww23940.html
21. ^ Quester,George "Bargaining and Bombing During World War II in Europe," World Politics, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Apr., 1963), pp. 421, 425. Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
22. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/area_bombing_02.shtml
23. ^ Chronological Summary of Royal Air Force Bomber Command Operations - Your Archives
24. ^ "Hitler's War; Hitler's Plans for Eastern Europe". http://www.dac.neu.edu/holocaust/Hitlers_Plans.htm. Retrieved on 2008-06-30.