CBSE - Nazism and the Rise of Hitler

The problems faced by the Weimar Republic were:

→ Versailles treaty: The Versailles Peace Treaty at the end of the First World War dispossessed Germany of its territories, its resources and its pride as a nation. He also had to pay 6 billion pounds as war compensation. In spite of the harsh terms, the Weimar Republic accepted the humiliating treaty, thereby making it unpopular amongst the German masses.

→ Economic Crisis: The German state was financially crippled due to overwhelming war debts which had to be paid in gold. Subsequently god reserves depleted and value of German mark fell. Prices of essential goods rose dramatically.

→ Political defects: The Weimar Republic was weak due to inherent constitutional irregularities such as proportional representation and Article 48 (which gave the President the power to impose emergency and rule by decree). The democratic parliamentary system seemed to give the people no solutions or benefits in the times of the severe economic crisis.

Nazism became popular in Germany by 1930 due to lot of reasons:

→ The most apparent being the Great Depression. The Weimar Republic did little to remedy the country's economic downfall, and Hitler was presented as a saviour to the humiliated German people living in economic and political crises.

→ The powerful speeches of Hitler in which he sought to build great nation, undo the injustice of the Versailles Treaty, restore the dignity of German people and provide employment for all stirred hopes in people.

→ Nazi propaganda was unique. Red banners with the Swastika, Nazi salute and the rounds of applause attracted the people making Nazism very popular.

The peculiar features of Nazi thinking were
→ A belief in racial heirarchy and Lebensraum or living space.
→ Nordic German Aryans were at the top, while the jews formed the lowest rung of the racial ladder.
→ They believed that only the strongest race would survive and rule.
→ New territories must be gained for enhancing the natural resources and power of Germany.

Nazi propaganda was effective in creating hatred for the jews:

→ The Nazis used the language and media effectively with great care. The racial theory put forward by the Nazis that the Jews belonged to a lower race and as such were undesirable.

→ The traditional Christian hatred for the Jews, because they were accused to have killed Christ, was fully exploited by the Nazis in order to make the Germans pre-judicial against Jews.

→ The Nazis injected hatred against the Jews even in the minds of the children from the very beginning during the days of their schooling. The teachers who were Jews were dismissed and Jews children were thrown out of the schools. Such methods and new ideological training to the new generation of children went a long way in making the Nazi’s propaganda quite effective in creating hatred for the Jews.

→ Propaganda films were made to create hatred for the Jews. Orthodox Jews were stereotyped and marked. For example, one such film was‘The Eternal Jew’. 

Role of women in Nazi society followed the rules of a largely patriarchal or male-dominated society. Hitler hailed women as "the most important citizen" in his Germany, but this was true for only Aryan women who bred pure-blood, "desirable" Aryans. Motherhood was the only goal they were taught to reach for, apart from performing the stereotypical functions of managing the household and being good wives. This was in stark contrast to the role of women in the French Revolution where women led movements and fought for rights to education and equal wages. They were allowed to form political clubs, and schooling was made compulsory for them after the French Revolution.

The Nazis established control over its people by various means:

→ They used different propaganda through posters or films to glorify their behaviour.
→ Media was carefully used to win support for the regime and popularise it.
→ Nazism worked on the minds of the people, tapped their emotions and turned their hatred and anger against those marked as ‘undesirable’.
→ Special surveillance and security forces to control and order society in ways that the Nazis wanted, was created.
→ The police forces had powers to rule with impunity. Genocide also created an atmosphere of fear and repression which helped them to establish total control over its people.

1. Which of the following can best define Nazism?

(a) Hitler's determination to make Germany a great nation

(b) Extermination of Jews

(c) A system, a structure of ideas about the world and politics

(d) Hitler's ambition of conquering the world

2. Allied Powers in World War II

(a) Germany, Italy, Japan

(b) Germany, Italy, Turkey

(c) UK, France, Italy

(d) UK, France, USSR, USA

3. Which nations were the Axis powers during World War II?

(a) UK, France, USA, USSR

(b) UK, France, Japan

(c) Germany, Italy, Japan

(d) Germany, France, UK

4. The International War Tribunal was set up in

(a) Vienna

(b) Munich

(c) Nuremberg

(d) Auschwitz

5. World War II began with German invasion of

(a) Poland

(b) Belgium

(c) Austria

(d) Czechoslovakia

6. Which among the following was the single most important factor in the victory of Allied powers in World War II?

(a) Alliance of England, France and Russia

(b) US entry in 1917

(c) Russian Revolution of 1917

(d) Axis Powers

7. Who among the given were called "November Criminals"?

(a) Bolsheviks

(b) Jews

(c) Nazis

(d) Socialists, Catholics and Democrats

8. Who were the 'desirables'?

(a) Nordic German Aryans

(b) Jews

(c) Indo Aryans

(d) Gypsies

9. Who among the following topped the list of undesirables'?

(a) Blacks

(b) Jews

(c) Gypsies

(d) Nordic Aryans

10. Which of the given parties came to be known as Nazi Party?

(a) German Workers Party

(b) Socialist Democratic Party

(c) National Socialist German Workers Party

(d) Socialist Party

11. German defeat in World War I

(a) led to the establishment of the Weimer Republic

(b) adoption of declaration of rights of man and citizens

(c) establishment of Nazi rule

(d) restoration of monarchy

12. What was not a factor in the rise of Hitler?

(a) Disgrace at Versailles

(b) Nazi propoganda and Hitler's charismatic leadership

(c) Years of Depression and Economic crisis

(d) Weimer Republic

13. Which of the following was the treaty signed by Germany after its defeat in World War I?

(a) Treaty of Paris

(b) Treaty of Versailles

(c) Brest Litovsk

(d) Dawes Plan

14. Which of the following was the immediate factor for the Great Depression (1929-1932)?

(a) Collapse of Wall Street Exchange

(b) Financial Impact of World War I

(c) Fall in US exports

(d) Collapse of banks

15. Which of the following was not a feature of the new Nazi style of politics?

(a) Massive rallies

(b) Ritualised applause

(c) Red banners with Swastika

(d) Not so powerful speeches of Hitler

16. Hitler's ideas of racialism were based on which of the following thinkers

(a) Aristotle

(b) Pluto

(c) Charles Darwin

(d) Rousseau

17. Which was not a feature of Jew stereotypes?

(a) Weak and degenerate

(b) Vermin and rats

(c) Foreign agents

(d) Generous and charitable

18. Which of the following was not a part of Hitler's policies to exclude Jews?

(a) Exclusion

(b) Ghettoisation

(c) Assimilation

(d) Annihilation

19. What was Jungvolk?

(а) Nazi youth group for children below 14 years

(b) Nazi youth group for children above 14 years

(c) It was the other name for Youth League

(d) It referred to the undesirable German children

20. Which of the following was the most feared security force of the Nazi State?

(a) Storm Troopers (SA)

(b) Protection Squads (SS)

(c) Gestapo

(d) Security Service

21. Hitler's world view was based on the concept of

(a) Charles Darwin

(b) Herbert Spence

(c) Lebensraum

(d) One nation, one empire and one leader

22. Which of the following was not true of Nazi State and women?

(a) Equal rights for men and women

(b) Women were socially different from men

(c) All mothers were not treated equally

(d) They had to bearers of Aryan culture and race

23. Which of the following is not true of ordinary people in Nazi Germany?

(а) Majority of Germans were passive onlookers

(b) They were scared to act, to differ, to protest

(c) Majority genuinely believed Nazism would bring prosperity and well-being

(d) Every German was a Nazi

Answers :

1. (c) 2. (d) 3. (c) 4. (c) 5. (a)

6. (b) 7. (d) 8. (a) 9. (b) 10. (c)

11. (a) 12. (d) 13. (b) 14. (a) 15. (d)

16. (c) 17. (d) 18. (c) 19. (a) 20. (c)

21. (c) 22. (a) 23. (d).

Jews

Nazi Party 

Aryan Race 

Weimer Republic 

1. Nuremberg Tribunal sentenced only eleven leading Nazis to death.

2. Many others were imprisoned for life.

3. The Allies were not in favour of harsh punishment to Nazis as they felt that the rise of Nazi Germany could be party traced back to the German experience at the end of the First World War. 

1. In May 1945, Germany surrendered to the Allies.

2. Anticipating, Hitler his propaganda minister Goebbels and his entire family committed suicide collectively in his Berlin bunker in April.

3. At the end of the war, an international Military tribunal at Nuremberg was set up to prosecute Nazi war criminals for crimes against peace, for war crimes and crimes against Humanity. 

1. The birth of Weimer Republic coincided with the revolutionary uprising of the Sparta cist League on the pattern of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia.  

2. Soviets of workers and sailors were established in many cities. The political atmosphere in Berlin was charged with demands of Soviet style of governance.

3.  The anguished Sparta cists later founded the Communist Party of Germany. 

1. Many Germans held the new Weimer Republic responsible for defeat in the war and disgrace at Versailles.  

2. The peace of treaty was harsh and humiliating for the Germans.

3. The allied powers demilitarized Germany to weaken its power. 

1. The defeat of Imperial Germany and the abdication of the emperor gave an opportunity to parliamentary parties to recast Germany polity.

2. A National Assembly met at Weimer and established a democratic constitution with a federal structure. 

3. Deputies were now elected to the German Parliament or Reichstag, on the basis of equal and universal votes cast by all adults including women. 

1. Germany fought the war largely on loans and had to pay war reparations in gold. This heightened the economic crises of 1923.  

2. The economic crises of 1923 created a situation when the prices of goods and services were very high.

3. Germany retaliated with passive resistance and printed paper currency recklessly. With too much printed money in circulation the value of the German Mark fell.

4. This crisis came to known as hyperinflation, a situation when prices rise phenomenally high. 

1. Wall Street Exchange crashed in 1929.

2. Fearing in a fall in prices, people made frantic efforts to sell their shares.

3. On single day, 24 October, 13 million shares were sold. This was the start of the great depression.

4. Over the next three years, between 1929 and 1932, the national income of the USA fell by half.

5. Factories shut down, exports fell, farmers were badly hit and speculators withdraw their money from the market.

6.    The effects of this recession in the US economy were felt worldwide. 

1.  The German economy was the worst hit by the economic crises. By 1932, industrial production was reduced to 40% of the 1929 level.

2. Workers lost their jobs or were paid reduced wages.

3. The number of unemployed touched an unprecedented 6 million.

4. On the streets of Germany we could see men with placards around their necks saying, ‘willing to do any work’.

5. The economic crises created deep anxieties and fear in People. The middle classes, especially salaried employees and pensioners, saw their savings diminish when the currency lost its value.

6.    Small businessmen, the self employed and retailers suffered as their businesses got ruined

It gave the President the powers to impose emergency, suspended civil rights and rule by decree. 

1. In September 1940, a Tripartite Pact was signed between Germany, Italy and Japan, strengthening Hitler’s claim to international power.

2. Puppet regimes, supportive of Nazi Germany were installed in a large part of Europe.

3. By the end of 1940, Hitler was at the pinnacle of his power. 

1. Schacht had advised Hitler against investing hugely in rearmament as the state still ran on deficit financing.

2. Cautious people however had no place in Nazi Germany.

3. Schacht had to leave. Hitler chose war as the way out of the approaching economic crises. 
 

1. Nazis used language and media were effectively.  

2. They used special words for mass killings-Special treatment, final solution, Jew euthanasia, selection and disinfection.

3. Media was used to win support for the regime and popularize its word view.

4. Propaganda films were made to defame the Jews, who were stereotyped and referred to as vermin, rats and pests. 

1. He believed that there was no equality among people-on racial hierarchy.

2. The blond haired, blue eyed Aryan race was the most superior and the most inferior were the Jews.

3. Hitler believed in lebensraum or living space. 

1. Hitler believed that a strong Nazi society could be established only by teaching children Nazi Ideology. 

2. Children were controlled both inside and outside schools which were cleansed and German children were segregated from Jews, gypsies and other children.

3.  Good German children were brainwashed about Nazi ideas of race and ideology of aggression and violence.

4. Youth organizations like Jungvolk and Hitler Youth were created to worship war, glorify aggression and violence, and hate democracy and undesirable elements.

1. Women had to be good mothers and rear pure-blooded Aryans.  

2. Women who bore racially desirable children were awarded and those who did not were punished.

3. Women had to follow the Aryan code of Conduct. 

1. Hitler assigned the responsibility of economic recovery to the economist Hjalmar Schacht.

2. He aimed at full production and full employment through a state funded workcreation program.  

3. This project produced the famous German superhighways and the people’s car, the Volkswagen.

4. Schacht had advised Hitler against investing hugely in rearmament as the state still ran on deficit financing.

5. Cautious people however had no place in Nazi Germany. Schacht had to leave. 

1. The German economy was the worst hit by the economic crises. By 1932, industrial production was reduced to 40 percent of the 1929 level.

2. Workers lost their jobs or were paid reduced wages.

3. The number of unemployed touched an unprecedented 6 million.

4. On the streets of Germany you could see men with placards around their neck saying, “willing to work”. Unemployment youths play cards and simply sat at street corners, or destroyed queued up at the local employment exchange.

5. The middle classes, especially salaried employees and pensioners, saw their savings diminish when the currency lost its value. 

1. Hitler pulled out of the League of Nations and reoccupied the Rhineland.

2. He integrated Austria and Germany in 1938 under the slogan one people one leader.

3. He occupied Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia.

4. In 1940 a Tripartite Pact was signed between Germany, Italy and Japan, strengthening Hitler’s claim to international power. 

1. Hitler assigned the responsibility of economic recovery to the economist Hjalmar Schacht.

2. A program of state funded economic reconstruction was launched aiming at full production and full employment.

3. This project produced the famous German superhighways and the people’s car, the Volkswagen.

4. Hitler wanted to spend hugely in rearmaments. 

1. Gandhiji wrote him that you are the person who can prevent a war which may reduce humanity to the savage state.

2. Non violence is against the humanity.

3. Gandhi appealed him to stop the war. 

1. He promised to build a string nation, undo the injustice of the Versailles Treaty and restore the dignity of the German people.

2. He promised employment for those looking for work, and a secure future for the youth.

3. He promised to weed out all foreign influences and resist all foreign conspiracies against Germany. 

1. Schools and education institutions were also used to spread the Nazi Ideology.

2. School textbooks were rewritten.

3. Racial science was introduced to justify the Nazi ideas of race.

4. Hitler believed that boxing could make children iron hearted, strong and masculine. 

1. Hitler wanted to achieve his long term aim of conquering Eastern Europe.

2. He wanted to ensure food supplies and living space for German.

3. So he attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941. 

1. Germany lost its overseas colonies, a tenth of it population, 13 percent of it colonies, 75 percent of its iron and 26 percent of its coal to France, Poland, Denmark and Lithuania.  

2. Weimer Republic was being made to pay for the sins of the old empire.

3. The republic carried the burden of war guilt and national humiliation and was financially crippled by being forced to pay compensations.

4. Those who supported the Weimer Republic, mainly Socialists, Catholics and Democrats, became easy targets of attack in the conservative nationalist circles.

5. The birth of Weimer Republic coincided with the revolutionary uprising of Spartacist League on the pattern of the Bolsheviks. 

1.  Politically, too the Weimer republic was Fragile. The Weimer Constitution had some inherent defects, which made it unstable and vulnerable to dictatorship.

2. One was proportional representation. This made achieving a majority by any one party a near impossible task, leading to a rule by coalition.

3. Another defect was Article 48, which gave the President the powers to impose emergency, suspend civil rights and rule by decree.

4. Within its short life the Weimar Republic saw twenty different cabinets lasting on an average 239 days, and a liberal use Article 48.

5. Yet the crises could not manage. People lost confidence in the democratic parliamentary system, which seemed to offer no solutions.