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The "short twentieth century", from 1914 to 1991, sees the First and the Second World War and the Cold War, including the rise and fall of Nazi Germany and of the Soviet Union. The First World War spelled the end of several Colonial empires, with the British and French (and other) empires ending with decolonisation--the independence of new states from 1947 to 1970. The collapse of Soviet Communism 1989 to 1991 left the West the winner of the Cold War and enabled the reunification of Germany and an accelerated process of a European integration that is ongoing but with German economic dominance. World War I Rising nationalism and increasing national awareness were among the many causes of World War I (19141918), the first of two wars to involve many major world powers including Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Russia/USSR, the United States and the British Empire. World War I led to the creation of many new countries, especially in Eastern Europe. World War II The economic and political aftermath of World War I and the Great Depression in the 1930s led to the rise of fascism and Nazism in Europe, and subsequently to World War II (19391945). This war also involved Asia and the Pacific, in the form of Japanese aggression against China and the United States. Civilians also suffered greatly in World War II, due to the aerial bombing of
cities on both sides, and the German genocide of the Jews and others, known as the Holocaust. Cold War The Cold War is the name given to the relationship that developed primarily between the USA and the USSR after World War Two. The Cold War was to dominate international affairs for decades and many major crises occurred - the Crisis, Vietnam, Hungary and the Berlin Wall being just some. For many the growth in weapons of mass destruction was the most worrying issue. USSR in 1945 was Russia post-1917 and included all the various countries that now exist individually (Ukraine, Georgia etc) but after the war they were part of this huge country up until the collapse of the Soviet Union (the other name for the USSR).
notoriety outside of the party for his rowdy, polemic speeches against the Treaty of Versailles, rival politicians (including monarchists, nationalists and other non-internationalist socialists) and especially against Marxists and Jews. The DAP was centred in Munich, a hotbed of German nationalists who included Army officers determined to crush Marxism and undermine the Weimar republic. Gradually they noticed Hitler and his growing movement as a vehicle to hitch them to. Hitler also attracted the attention of local business interests, was accepted into influential circles of Munich society, and became associated with wartime General Erich Ludendorff during this time.
War Ministry to overthrow the Bavarian government as a start to their "March on Berlin", the police dispersed them. Sixteen NSDAP members were killed. Hitler fled to the home of Ernst Hanfstaengl and contemplated suicide. He was soon arrested for high treason. Alfred Rosenberg became temporary leader of the party. During Hitler's trial, he was given almost unlimited time to speak, and his popularity soared as he voiced nationalistic sentiments. A Munich personality became a nationally known figure. On April 1, 1924, Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at Landsberg Prison. Hitler received favoured treatment from the guards and had much fan mail from admirers. He was pardoned and released from jail in December 1924, as part of a general amnesty for political prisoners. Including time on remand, he had served little more than one year of his sentence.
joined Hitler. After this encounter, Hitler centralized the party even more and asserted the Fhrerprinzip ("Leader principle") as the basic principle of party organization. Leaders were not elected by their group but were rather appointed by their superior and were answerable to them while demanding unquestioning obedience from their inferiors. Consistent with Hitler's disdain for democracy, all power and authority devolved from the top down. A key element of Hitler's appeal was his ability to evoke a sense of offended national pride caused by the Treaty of Versailles imposed on the defeated German Empire by the Western Allies. Germany had lost economically important territory in Europe along with its colonies and in admitting to sole responsibility for the war had agreed to pay a huge reparations bill totalling 132 billion marks. Most Germans bitterly resented these terms, but early Nazi attempts to gain support by blaming these humiliations on "International Jewry" were not particularly successful with the electorate. The party learned quickly, and soon a more subtle propaganda emerged, combining anti-Semitism with an attack on the failures of the "Weimar system" and the parties supporting it.
Treaty of Versailles
The 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 treaty was registered by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on 21 October 1919, and was printed in The League of Nations Treaty Series. The Treaty deprived Germany of various territories, demilitarized the Rhineland and imposed other economically damaging sanctions. The treaty re-created Poland, which even moderate Germans regarded as an outrage. The treaty also blamed Germany for all the horrors of the war. Most European nations in the run-up to World War I had become increasingly militarised and were eager to fight. The culpability of Germany was used as a basis to impose reparations on Germany (the amount was repeatedly revised under the Dawes Plan, the Young Plan, and the Hoover Moratorium). Germany in turn perceived the treaty and especially the paragraph on the German guilt as a humiliation. For example, there was a nearly total demilitarisation of the armed forces, allowing Germany only six battleships, no submarines, no air force, an army of 100,000 without conscription and no armoured vehicles. The treaty was an important factor in both the social and political conditions encountered by Hitler and his Nazis as they sought power. Hitler and his party used the signing of the treaty by the "November Criminals" as a reason to build up Germany so that it could never happen again. He also used the "November Criminals" as scapegoats, although at the Paris peace conference, these politicians had had very little choice in the matter.
Rise to Power
The political turning point for Hitler came when the Great Depression hit Germany in 1930. The Weimar Republic had never been firmly rooted and was openly opposed by right-wing conservatives (including monarchists), Communists and the Nazis. As the parties loyal to the democratic, parliamentary republic found themselves unable to agree on counter-measures, their Grand Coalition broke up and was replaced by a minority cabinet. The new Chancellor, Heinrich Brning of the Roman Catholic Centre Party, lacking a majority in parliament, had to implement his measures through the president's emergency decrees. Tolerated by the majority of parties, the exception soon became the rule and paved the way for authoritarian forms of government. The Reichstag's initial opposition to Brning's measures led to premature elections in September 1930. The republican parties lost their majority and their ability to resume the Grand Coalition, while the Nazis suddenly rose from relative obscurity to win 18.3% of the vote along with 107 seats in the Reichstag, becoming the second largest party in Germany. Brning's measure of budget consolidation and financial austerity brought little economic improvement and was extremely unpopular. Under these circumstances, Hitler appealed to the bulk of German farmers, war veterans and the middle class, who had been hard-hit by both the inflation of the 1920s and the unemployment of the Depression. Hitler received little response from the urban working classes and traditionally Catholic regions.
In 1932, Hitler intended to run against the aging President Paul von Hindenburg in the scheduled presidential elections. Though Hitler had left Austria in 1913, he still had not acquired German citizenship and hence could not run for public office. In February, however, the state government of Brunswick, in which the Nazi Party participated, appointed Hitler to a minor administrative post and also gave him citizenship on February 25, 1932. The new German citizen ran against Hindenburg, who was supported by a broad range of reactionary nationalist, monarchist, Catholic, republican and even social democratic parties, and against the Communist presidential candidate. His campaign was called "Hitler ber Deutschland" (Hitler over Germany). The name had a double meaning; besides an obvious reference to Hitler's dictatorial intentions, it also referred to the fact that Hitler was campaigning by aircraft. This was a brand new political tactic that allowed Hitler to speak in two cities in one day, which was practically unheard of at the time. Hitler came in second on both rounds, attaining more than 35% of the vote during the second one in April. Although he lost to Hindenburg, the election established Hitler as a realistic alternative in German politics.
Appointment as Chancellor
Meanwhile, Papen tried to get his revenge on Schleicher by working toward the General's downfall, through forming an intrigue with the leading German businessmen. They financially supported the Nazi Party, which had been brought to the brink of bankruptcy by the cost of heavy campaigning. The businessmen also wrote letters to Hindenburg, urging him to appoint Hitler as leader of a government "independent from parliamentary parties" which could turn into a movement that would "enrapture millions of people." Finally, the president reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler Chancellor of a coalition government formed by the NSDAP and DNVP. Hitler and two other Nazi ministers (Frick, Gring) were to be contained by a framework of conservative cabinet ministers, most notably by Papen as Vice-Chancellor and by Hugenberg as Minister of the Economy. Papen wanted to use Hitler as a figure-head, but the Nazis had gained key positions, most notably the Ministry of the Interior. On the morning of 30 January 1933, in Hindenburg's office, Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor during what some observers later described as a brief and simple ceremony. The Nazis' seizure of power subsequently became known as the Machtergreifung.
Third Reich
Having secured supreme political power, Hitler went on to gain their support by convincing most Germans he was their saviour from the economic Depression, communism, the "Judeo-Bolsheviks," and the Versailles Treaty, along with other "undesirable" minorities. The Nazis eliminated opposition through a process known as Gleichschaltung.
Hitler also oversaw one of the largest infrastructure-improvement campaigns in German history, with the construction of dozens of dams, autobahns, railroads, and other civil works. Hitler's policies emphasised the importance of family life: men were the "breadwinners", while women's priorities were to lie in bringing up children and in household work. This revitalising of industry and infrastructure came at the expense of the overall standard of living, at least for those not affected by the chronic unemployment of the later Weimar Republic, since wages were slightly reduced in pre World War II years, despite a 25% increase in the cost of living. Labourers and farmers, the traditional voters of the NSDAP, however, saw an increase in their standard of living. Hitler's government sponsored architecture on an immense scale, with Albert Speer becoming famous as the first architect of the Reich. While important as an architect in implementing Hitler's classicist reinterpretation of German culture, Speer proved much more effective as armaments minister during the last years of World War II. In 1936, Berlin hosted the summer Olympic games, which were opened by Hitler and choreographed to demonstrate Aryan superiority over all other races, achieving mixed results. Olympia, the movie about the games and other documentary propaganda films for the German Nazi Party were directed by Hitler's personal filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. Although Hitler made plans for a Breitspurbahn (broad gauge railroad network), they were pre-empted by World War II. Had the railroad been built, its gauge would have been three metres, even wider than the old Great Western Railway of Britain. Hitler contributed slightly to the design of the car that later became the Volkswagen Beetle and charged Ferdinand Porsche with its design and construction. Production was also deferred because of the war.
Hitler considered Sparta to be the first National Socialist state, and praised its early eugenics treatment of deformed children. He awarded the Order of the German Eagle, the Third Reich's highest distinction, to the industrialist Emil Kirdorf in April 1937, in reward for his financial support during his rise to power. The next year, he organized state funerals for him.
Autobahns
Mussolini on 25 October 1936. The 25th November of the same year, Germany concluded the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan. To strengthen relationship with this nation, Hitler met in 1937 in Nuremberg prince Chichibu, a brother of Emperor Hirohito. The Tripartite Treaty was then signed by Saburo Kurusu of Imperial Japan, Hitler, and Ciano on 27 September 1940. It was later expanded to include Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. They were collectively known as the Axis Powers. Then on 5 November 1937, at the Reich Chancellory, Adolf Hitler held a secret meeting with the War and Foreign Ministers plus the three service chiefs, recorded in the Hossbach Memorandum and stated his plans for acquiring "living space" (Lebensraum) for the German people.
The Holocaust
One of the foundations of Hitler's and the NSDAP's social policies was the concept of racial hygiene. It was based on the ideas of Arthur de Gobineau, eugenics, and social Darwinism. Applied to human beings, "survival of the fittest" was interpreted as requiring racial purity and killing off "life unworthy of life." The first victims were crippled and retarded children in a program dubbed Action T4. After a public outcry, Hitler made a show of ending this program, but the killings in fact continued. Between 1939 and 1945, the SS, assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries, systematically killed somewhere between 11 and 14 million people, including about 6 million Jews, in
concentration camps, ghettos and mass executions, or through less systematic methods elsewhere. Besides being gassed to death, many also died as a result of starvation and disease while working as slave labourers (sometimes benefiting private German companies in the process, because of the low cost of such labour). Along with Jews, non-Jewish Poles (over 3 million casualties), alleged communists or political opposition, members of resistance groups, Catholic and Protestant opponents, homosexuals, Roma, the physically handicapped and mentally retarded, Soviet prisoners of war (possibly as many as 3 million), Jehovah's Witnesses, anti-Nazi clergy, trade unionists, and psychiatric patients were killed. One of the biggest centres of mass-killing was the extermination camp complex of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Hitler never visited the concentration camps and did not speak publicly about the killing in precise terms. The massacres that led to the coining of the word "genocide" (the Endlsung der jdischen Frage or "Final Solution of the Jewish Question") were planned and ordered by leading Nazis, with Himmler playing a key role. While no specific order from Hitler authorizing the mass killing of the Jews has surfaced, there is documentation showing that he approved the Einsatzgruppen, killing squads that followed the German army through Poland and Russia and that he was kept well informed about their activities. The evidence also suggests that in the fall of 1941 Himmler and Hitler decided upon mass extermination by gassing. During interrogations by Soviet intelligence officers declassified over fifty years later, Hitler's valet Heinz
Linge and his military aide Otto Gunsche said Hitler had "pored over the first blueprints of gas chambers." To make for smoother cooperation in the implementation of this "Final Solution", the Wannsee conference was held near Berlin on 20 January 1942, with fifteen senior officials participating, led by Reinhard Heydrich and Adolf Eichmann. The records of this meeting provide the clearest evidence of planning for the Holocaust. On 22 February, Hitler was recorded saying to his associates, "we shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jews".
World War II
On 12 March 1938, Hitler pressured Austria into unification with Germany (the Anschluss) and made a triumphal entry into Vienna on 14 March. Next, he intensified a crisis over the German-speaking Sudetenland districts of Czechoslovakia. This led to the Munich Agreement of September 1938, which authorized the annexation and immediate military occupation of these districts by Germany. As a result of the summit, Hitler was TIME magazine's Man of the Year for 1938. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain hailed this agreement as "Peace in our time", but by giving way to Hitler's military demands Britain and France also left Czechoslovakia to Hitler's mercy. Hitler ordered Germany's army to enter Prague on 15 March 1939, and from Prague Castle proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate. After that, Hitler claimed German grievances relating to the Free City of Danzig and the Polish Corridor, that Germany had ceded under the Versailles Treaty. Britain had not been able to reach an agreement with the Soviet Union for an alliance against Germany, and, on 23 August 1939, Hitler concluded a secret non-aggression pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) with Stalin on which it was likely agreed that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany would partition Poland. On 1 September Germany invaded the western portion of Poland. Having guaranteed assistance to Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September but did not immediately act. Not long after this, on 17 September, Soviet forces invaded eastern Poland.
During this Phoney War, Hitler built up his forces. In April 1940, he ordered German forces to march into Denmark and Norway. In May 1940, Hitler ordered his forces to attack France, conquering the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium in the process. France surrendered on 22 June 1940. This series of victories persuaded his main ally, Benito Mussolini of Italy, to join the war on Hitler's side in May 1940. Britain, whose defeated forces had evacuated France from the coastal town of Dunkirk, continued to fight alongside Canadian forces in the Battle of the Atlantic. After having his overtures for peace systematically rejected by the British Government, now led by Winston Churchill, Hitler ordered bombing raids on the British Isles, leading to the Battle of Britain, a prelude of the planned German invasion. The attacks began by pounding the Royal Air Force airbases and the radar stations protecting South-East England. However, the Luftwaffe failed to defeat the Royal Air Force by the end of October 1940. Air superiority for the invasion, code-named Operation Sea lion, could not be assured, and Hitler ordered bombing raids to be carried out on British cities, including London and Coventry, mostly at night. On 22 June 1941, three million German troops attacked the Soviet Union, breaking the non-aggression pact Hitler had concluded with Stalin two years earlier. This invasion, Operation Barbarossa, seized huge amounts of territory, including the Baltic states, Belarus, and Ukraine. It also encircled and destroyed many Soviet forces. But the Germans were stopped short of Moscow in December 1941 by the Russian winter and fierce Soviet resistance. The invasion failed to achieve the quick triumph Hitler wanted. Hitler's declaration of war against the United States on 11 December 1941, four days after the Empire of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, set him against a coalition that included the world's largest empire (the British Empire), the world's greatest
industrial and financial power (the United States), and the world's largest army (the Soviet Union). In late 1942, German forces were defeated in the second battle of El Alamein, thwarting Hitler's plans to seize the Suez Canal and the Middle East. In February 1943, the titanic Battle of Stalingrad ended with the encirclement and destruction of the German 6th Army. Shortly thereafter came the gigantic Battle of Kursk (1,300,000 Russians, 3,600 tanks, 20,000 artillery pieces and 2,400 aircraft, versus 900,000 Germans, 2,700 tanks, and 2,000 aircraft). From Stalingrad on, Hitler's military judgment became increasingly erratic, and Germany's military and economic position deteriorated. Hitler's health was also deteriorating. His left hand trembled. The biographer Ian Kershaw and others believe that he may have suffered from Parkinson's disease. Syphilis has also been suspected as a cause of at least some of his symptoms, although the evidence is slight. Following the allied invasion of Italy (Operation Husky) in 1943 Hitler's ally, Mussolini, was deposed by Pietro Badoglio who surrendered to the Allies. Throughout 1943 and 1944, the Soviet Union steadily forced Hitler's armies into retreat along the Eastern Front. On 6 June 1944, the Western Allied armies landed in northern France in what was the largest amphibious operation ever conducted, Operation Overlord. Realists in the German army knew defeat was inevitable, and some officers plotted to remove Hitler from power. In July 1944, one of them, Claus von Stauffenberg, planted a bomb in one of Hitler's Fhrer Headquarters, the Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair) at Rastenburg, but Hitler narrowly escaped death. He ordered savage reprisals, resulting in the executions of more than 4,900 people, sometimes by starvation in solitary confinement followed by slow strangulation. The main resistance movement was destroyed, although smaller isolated groups continued to operate.
Ignoring the facts, Hitler saw salvation in the ragtag units commanded by one of his favourite generals, Felix Steiner. For Hitler's purposes, Steiner's command became known as "Army Detachment Steiner" (Armeeabteilung Steiner). However, the "Army Detachment Steiner" existed primarily on paper. It was something more than a corps but less than an army. Hitler ordered Steiner to attack the northern flank of the huge salient created by the breakthrough of Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front. Meanwhile, the German Ninth Army, which had just been pushed south of the salient, was ordered to attack north in a pincer attack. Late on 21 April, Heinrici called Hans Krebs Chief German General Staff of the Supreme Army Command (Oberkommando des Heeres or OKH) and told him that Hitler's plan could not be implemented. Heinrici asked to speak to Hitler but was told by Krebs that Hitler was too busy to take his call. On 22 April, during one of his last military conferences, Hitler interrupted the report to ask what had happened to General Steiner's offensive. There was a long silence. Then Hitler was told that the attack had never been launched, and that the withdrawal from Berlin of several units for Steiner's army, on Hitler's orders, had so weakened the front that the Russians had broken through into Berlin. This was too much for Hitler. He asked everyone except Wilhelm Keitel, Hans Krebs, Alfred Jodl, Wilhelm Burgdorf, and Martin Bormann to leave the room, and launched a tirade against the perceived treachery and incompetence of his commanders. This culminated in an oath to stay in Berlin, head up the defense of the city, and shoot himself at the end. Before the day ended, Hitler again found salvation in a new plan that included General Walther Wenck's Twelfth Army. This new plan had Wenck turn his armycurrently facing the Americans to the west and attack towards the east to relieve Berlin. Twelfth Army was to link up with Ninth Army and break through to the city. Wenck did attack and, in the confusion, managed to make temporary contact
with the Potsdam garrison. But the link with the Ninth Army, like the plan in general, was ultimately unsuccessful. On 23 April, after committing to stay in Berlin with Hitler, Joseph Goebbels made the following proclamation to the people of Berlin I call on you to fight for your city. Fight with everything you have got, for the sake of your wives and your children, your mothers and your parents. Your arms are defending everything we have ever held dear, and all the generations that will come after us. Be proud and courageous! Be inventive and cunning! Your Gauleiter is amongst you. He and his colleagues will remain in your midst. His wife and children are here as well. He, who once captured the city with 200 men, will now use every means to galvanize the defence of the capital. The battle for Berlin must become the signal for the whole nation to rise up in battle.... 30th April held bad news on the military front. Leaders of the German command in Berlin reported that they would only be able to hold off the final Russian advance for another two to three days, at most. Hitler knew that the end of his Thousand Year Reich was fast approaching. After a meeting with his staff, Hitler and Braun ate their final meal with his two secretaries and the bunkers cook. Shortly after 3 pm, they said goodbye to the staff in the bunker and retired to their private chambers. Although there is some uncertainty surrounding the exact circumstances, historians believe that the pair ended their lives by swallowing cyanide while sitting on a couch in the sitting room. For added measure, Hitler also shot himself in the head with his personal pistol. Following their deaths, Hitler and Brauns bodies were wrapped in blankets and then carried up into the Chancellery garden. One of Hitlers personal assistants, SS Officer Otto Gnsche doused the bodies in gasoline and burned them, per Hitlers final orders.
Gnsche was accompanied to the funeral pyre by several of the officials in the bunker, including Goebbels and Bormann. Hitlers death was publicly announced on May 1, 1945. Earlier that same day, Magda Goebbels poisoned her six children. She stated to witnesses in the bunker that she did not wish them to continue to live in the world without her. Shortly thereafter, Joseph and Magda ended their own lives, although their exact method of suicide is unclear. Their bodies were also burned in the Chancellerys garden. It is reported that in 1970, the Russians decided to destroy the remains. A small group of KGB agents dug up the remains of Hitler, Braun, Joseph and Magda Goebbels, and the Goebbels six children near the Soviet garrison at Magdeburg and then took them to a local forest and burned the remains even further. Once the bodies had been reduced to ash, they were dumped into a river. The only thing not burned was a skull and part of a jawbone, believed to be Hitlers.
Bibliography
Websites:
o http://adolf-hitlerinfo.blogspot.in/2007/11/entry-into-politics.html o http://history1900s.about.com/od/1940s/a/Hitl er-Suicide.htm