fas·cism: A political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition. - Merriam-Webster |
You will now be able to understand how Hitler gained power in Germany one step at a time up until becoming Führer and later declaring world war on his neighbors.
But somewhere along his timeline, what was going to happen could have been stopped if only people could have been convinced of what lay ahead in their lives. Remember that from the time Hitler was elected into the government only 13 years would pass before Germany would lie in ruins. It would not fully come back until 1985.
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Items bolded in blue and underlined are common to any Fascist Rule over a country's people
(Note: Some of the body content for this section was sourced from spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk)
Germany in the late 1920's was similar to America today in that it was a society trying to grow jobs to give people some money again in their pockets. The country was unaware of what was waiting in the wings to undo their growing economy in the depression of 1929.
Yet the environment would be a perfect breeding ground for the perfect storm for a messianic leader to gather the people together for a single politically correct cause. Germany, having lost a World War the decade before, was no longer interested in another world conflict. It was a time when Hitler's message fell on deaf ears. People who had food in their stomachs were not the ones to lead a revolution. And the people didn't trust Hitler with his speeches of hate. Then came the 1929 depression that would put 1/3 of the population out of work with the middle class taking a direct hit.
Adolph Hitler had served in the Bavarian Army as a corporal where he received the Iron Cross for Bravery. He blamed the Jews and the Communist Marxists for Germany's loss in WWI. In 1920 he became the chairman of the Labor Union, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter-Partei, also referred to as the Nati Party which would quickly morph to the Nazi Party.
Spartacus Educational writes, Hitler saw socialism as part of a Jewish conspiracy. Many of the socialist leaders in Germany, including Kurt Eisner, Rosa Luxemburg, Ernst Toller and Eugen Levine were Jews. So also were many of the leaders of the October Revolution in Russia. This included Leon Trotsky, Gregory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Dimitri Bogrov, Karl Radek, Yakov Sverdlov, Maxim Litvinov, Adolf Joffe, and Moisei Uritsky. It had not escaped Hitler's notice that Karl Marx, the prophet of socialism, had also been a Jew.
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| A 1930 portrait of four young Wandervögels from Oberammergau looking somewhat like latter-day hippies. Hitler, once getting out of jail, would later use the organization for his Third Reich. |
The clockwise swastika, (counter clockwise used for mystical symbols), was already being used in Germany to portray nationalism in the late 19th century, the symbol formerly representing positive Aryan/Indian origins later found on the German Gymnasts' League and the Wandervogel, an early German youth movement dedicated to the theme back to nature.
The organization's goal was to rediscover nature, taking long hikes and sleeping outside while singing German folk songs around campfires. They also developed a greeting custom, saying "Heil" meaning Hail to you. It's objective of older boys leading younger boys was also adopted by the German Catholic Youth Organization, the Boy Scouts, along with religious and sporting groups.
In 1920 Hitler adopted the iconography of the swastika for his new Nazi Party. About.com reports what Hitler wrote about the new flag: "In red we see the social idea of the movement, in white the nationalistic idea, in the swastika the mission of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man, and, by the same token, the victory of the idea of creative work, which as such always has been and always will be anti-Semitic."
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| Source: Hitler poses in 1929 with Brown Shirt thugs of the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the Nazi Swastika flag |
In 1922, Hitler tried to form a similar organization to the Wandervögels with his National Socialist Youth. The History Place reports, "among the rules: no membership fees and an emphasis on 'love of one's country and people; enjoyment of honest open combat and of healthy physical activity; the veneration of ethical and spiritual values; and the rejection of those values originating from Jewry.'"
The History Place goes on to report that every other Sunday the National Socialist Youth League would have discussions along with mandatory hikes. The first uniforms were the same as Hitler's strong arm of the SA (Sturmabteilung) who wore brown shirts, or known as Hitler's early Storm Troopers and his private army. This caused resentment among the younger SA members, who were now sometimes confused with Hitler's new National Socialist Youth League.
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| "Adolf Hitler, within the space of twelve months from 1923 to 1924, led an attempted revolt, the Beer Hall Putsch, which failed, and was sent to Landsberg Prison where Hitler wrote his 'Mein Kampf''." |
However it was disbanded when Hitler was captured after trying to violently overtake the Weimar Republic in 1923 at Bavaria during the famous Beer Hall Putsch. At the time the Nazi Party was also known as the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) and reported to have ten-of-thousands of members who had banded together over anger that the German government had agreed to pay reparations as dictated by the Treaty of Versailles.
They believed the government in doing that had betrayed Germany, the reparations an admittance that Germany was guilty for WWI.
While in prison Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, (My Struggle), dedicated in 1924 to those who had lost their lives in the Beer Hall Putsch Riot. While Hitler should have received the death penalty for treason, it was reported, the judges sympathized with Hitler's mission to bring Germany back from defeat and ruled he had to serve only five years. He would guarantee Hitler the springboard to become one of the World's most evil dictators.
Hitler was released from prison after one year at the end of 1924. Being out in the daylight again, he quickly discovered the government he had tried to bring down had gained control of inflation. The people of Germany now had more trust in their leaders. They were no longer interested in the extreme solutions of Hitler's NSDAP.
For several years Hitler lived a normal life in Germany's new stable society. In this period of his life he met Eva Braun. These recently discovered photos of Eva showed how normal Nazi Germany looked through another lens many Americans forget. .
Then in 1927 Hitler was approached by a wealth German Industrialist, Emil Kirdorf. While he was concerned with some of the policies of Hitler's NSDAP, Kirdorf wanted Hitler to write a pamphlet for special distribution among other leading industrialists to discuss the economic policies of the Nazi Party.
Hitler told Kirdorf that some of his questioned policies of the Nazi Party were there only to gain support of the country's working class and would be later cast aside once it gained power, such as the Nazi Party calling for the redistribution of wealth in Germany. The completed pamphlet was titled, The Road to Resurgence, and published the summer of 1927. Hitler assured the business leaders the pamphlet was intended for that. In the end the Nazi Party was a supporter of private enterprise and opposed to any real change to the country's social structure.
Kirdorf and other business leaders believed Hitler would therefore suppress the trade union movement in Germany once the Nazi Party gained power. However, Hitler soon fell out of favor when he didn't keep his promise to remove the left wing of the party. The industrialists instead went onto support the German Nationalist Party, lead by Alfred Nugenberg.
The loss of the industrialist support gave the Nazi Party only 3% of the seats in the Reichstag in the 1928 elections. However the Nazi Party was still growing, having over 100,000 members by 1928. One of the new members was Joseph Goebbels, who later noted in a diary that Hitler had everything to be king. As a writer and speaker, Goebbels and Hitler hit it off, creating propaganda to promote the NSDAP to win total support of the German people.
While the German Social Democratic Party was funded by the trade unions and industrialists, the NSDAP had to rely on contributions from party members only. Hitler began to argue that capitalists had worked their own way to the top and on that basis they should have the right to lead, claiming that national socialism would not threaten the wealthy. By saying this he hoped to gain at least some financial support on his spin.
Besides Goebbels, Hitler was also impressed with Heinrich Himmler and his fanatical nationalism and deep hatred of Jews that followed Hitler's ideology. Like Goebbels, Himmler saw Hitler as a Messiah who was destined to lead Germany to greatness. Himmler's position earned his leadership of Hitler's private bodyguards, the Schutzstaffeinel, or better know as the "SS."
But Hitler was rewarded for his tenacity. The 1929 Wall Street Crash would cause the U.S. to recall loans from Europe. That recall would quickly destroy jobs for the German middle class, four million out of work within one year. Germany's economy had relied on investment from the United States, causing Germany to suffer even more job losses than other European countries while businesses had to also cut wages. Hitler, who had been seen as a fool in the 1928 election for predicting economic disaster, was now seen to many to be clever enough to solve it.
So it was no surprise to see the NSDAP increase its representatives in the German Parliament from 14 to 107 in the 1930 general election. Overnight it became second in popularity, taking majority rule from the largest party in the Reichstag, the German Social Democratic Party.
The NSDAP then argued that only Hitler's new popularity could provide for a stronger government. Hitler and others gave numerous speeches to gain the public's support for Hitler's leadership in the German Reichstag
Hitler would play the game, changing his speech to fit the groups who were listening. For instance, in rural areas Hitler promised tax cuts for farmers while protecting food prices. However in working class areas Hitler proposed a redistribution of wealth and attacked the high profits made by German businessmen. But then when he spoke to the German Industrialists, Hitler promised to destroy Communism and to again reduce the power of the unions. His political dance was amazing.*
Hitler's main message, as mentioned at the beginning of this page, was that Germany's economic recession was caused by the Jews and the Communists at the Treaty of Versailles. Yet Hitler never gave a central explanation to the people as to how he would improve the German economy.
With power now divided in the German Reichstag, the power of the position of German President became very important to Hitler's goal of running German. While Hitler tried to challenge the 84-year old Hindenburg for the Reichstag's Presidency, many in the German population feared Hitler for his Fascist-like opinions.
The situation was so fluid, there was concern Hitler would use his private army of 400,000 Storm Troopers to take power by force and not wait for an election. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles with Germany losing the war, the officially allowed number of troops in the German Army was 75% smaller than Hitler's Storm troopers (SA). But with the growth of violence and the Reichstag fearing a NSDAP coup, the SA up to then had been banned.
In May 1932, Hindenburg put Franz von Papen into power. The new chancellor was also a member of the Catholic Centre Party and sympathetic to the NSDAP, causing the ban on the SA to be removed. The next few weeks saw open warfare on the streets between the NSDAP and the Communists, with over 80 people killed.
Franz von Papen, to calm the rise in violence, called for another election. At the time Hitler had gained more support with the NSDAP winning 230 seats to become the largest party in the German Reichstag. All that was left to stop Hitler was the German Social Democrat Party and the German Communist Party that still had support of the urban working class to deprive Hitler of a majority in the German Parliament.
With the new numbers in the German Parliament, Hitler saw fit to demand he should instead be made Chancellor. But Paul von Hindenburg feared Hitler and assigned the position to Major-General Kurt von Schleicher.
Hitler, furious, began to abandon his strategy of disguising his extremist views that others knew about. In one speech he even dared to call for an end to Germany's democratic system of government. In an attempt to bring Germany back to greatness, Hitler referred to the current system as mediocre, cowardly and inadequate.
The violence increased as Nazis, moved into the German Reichstag itself, beating up Communist Party Members. The Nazis thugs were physically thrown out of the building.
Hitler's storm troopers also did terrible acts of violence against socialists and Communists who were stabbed to death outside of the capital. Hitler even shocked ordinary Germans in trying to get his storm troopers out of jail.
These tactics by Hitler's thug supporters worried many Germans, with support for the NSDAP suddenly falling in the elections of November 1932. In turn the German Communist Party made gains winning 100 seats. Hitler warned there would be a Bolshevik Revolution.
Industrialists, again having faith in Hitler's politics, petitioned Hindenburg for Hitler to become Chancellor. Hindenberg was reported to reluctantly agree to the request. Hitler, then in his early 40's, became the new Chancellor of Germany!
To make up for the loss of the NSDAP in the 1932 election, Hitler as chancellor could call for a new election. Hermann Goering called a meeting of important industrialists to tell them this could be the last general election and to support Hitler so they would be on the correct side of destiny. Hitler played both sides--the labor unions against the industrialists. He promised unions higher wages while he promised the industrialists cheaper labor. When industrialists gave three million reichmarks to the NSDAP, money was no longer an issue. It could then control the media.
In the background, Goering as Minister of the Interior was busily removing senior police officers, replacing them with Nazi supporters. These supporters would become the government's Gestapo, recruiting an estimated 50,000 of Hitler's Storm troopers to work as police auxiliaries. (See another reference in very recent history to the techniques of the Gestapo.)
Goering then raided the headquarters of the Communist Party in Berlin and made up a plot they were planning to overthrow the government and poison the German Milk supply.
In late February of 1933, the German Reichstag burned. Several people were arrested, including a leading Communist sympathizer accused of setting the fire as part of a plot to overthrow the government.
Hindenburg, in believing the made-up plot that the Communists were trying to bring down his government, gave Hitler dictatorial powers. Communist candidates in the election were then quickly arrested with Goering announcing German communists would be exterminated.
Thousands of members of the Social Democrat Party and Communist Party found themselves in concentration camp, named that because they "concentrated the enemy" into a protected known area. It was reported Hitler named these camps after those used by the British during the Boer War.
Left-wing election meetings were broken up by the Sturm Abteilung (SA) and several candidates were murdered. Newspapers that supported these political parties were closed down during the 1933 General Election.
While it was extremely difficult for opposition parties to campaign fairly, the NSDAP still failed to win an overall victory in the election of March, 1933. The NSDAP received 44% of the vote and about 1/3 of the seats. The only increase in the Nazi vote was from the Catholic rural areas that feared an atheistic government from potential Communist control.
After the elections, Hitler created an Enabling Bill that would give him dictatorial powers. The bill needed 75% support from the members of the Reichstag.
Reading the political correctness writing on the wall, tens-of-thousands of the Communist and Social Democrat Party left the county.
Hitler still needed support, negotiating with the Catholic Centre Party to vote for the Enabling Bill, promising the NSDAP would guarantee the rights of the Catholic Church.
With that last negotiation, nothing would block Hitler from becoming dictator of Germany, its Fuehrer.
Hitler's first move was to control the trade unions. Union leaders were sent to concentration camps and the organization was put under the control of the NSDAP. The trade union movement became the The Labor Front.
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| "On May 10, 1933, in front of the Berlin Opera, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels presided over the notorious book burning. The Hitler regime had drawn up lists of scholars and writers unacceptable to the New Order. Among them were Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Alfred Döblin, Erich Maria Remarque, Carl von Ossietzky, Kurt Tucholsky, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Erich Kästner, and Carl Zuckmayer." |
Soon the Communist Party and the Social Democrat Party were banned. Any party activists who had not left the country were arrested. A month later Hitler as dictator announced that the Catholic Centre Party, the German Nationalist Party and all other political parties other than the NSDAP were now illegal.
By the end of 1933 all political prisoners were sent to camps.
The Gestapo then also began arresting prostitutes, homosexuals, alcoholics and anyone incapable of working. The only people murdered by Hitler at this time was those classed as incurably insane.
Germany became a Fascist State represented by a one-party system that emphasized allegiance to Germany's NSDAP, demanded national unity behind the NSDAP and its soldiers and unquestionable obedience.
The German economic system remained capitalistic but the state played a more prominent role in managing the economy. Industrialists were sometimes told what to produce and what price they should charge for the goods they made. The government also had the power to order workers to move to where they were required.
As the government generally allowed companies to maintain their profit margins, industrialists tended to accept the loss of some of their freedoms. Under fascism, all opposition had been removed.
While Hitler controlled Germany's domestic population, he still didn't have control of the military that ran the German Army.
Once Hitler gained power he ceased to be a practicing Christian. In 1934 Hitler signed an agreement with Pope Pius XI, that was basically an agreement of the separation of church and state.
All information that people in Germany received was selected and organized to support progressive fascist beliefs. Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, kept a close watch on the information provided by the entire media, from newspapers and radio to books and theatrical plays.
Teachers who were critical of Hitler's Germany were either fired or sent for retraining to be sensitive to the rules of the NSDAP. And members of Hitler's Youth Organizations were given the authority to report on teachers who questioned fascism in or out of the classroom. All textbooks were pulled and rewritten by members of the NSDAP.
By 1934 Hitler had complete control over Germany. He allowed his own leaders to jockey for senior positions to keep them from seeking to gain control of the government.
Albert Voegler, Gustav Krupp, Alfried Krupp, Fritz Thyssen and Emile Kirdorf who had provided the funds for the Nazi victory, were now complaining that one of Hitler's early supporters, Ernest Roehm, and many other leaders in the SA were Nazi homosexuals.
Ernst Rohm had been with Hitler since 1919. He rose to SA Chief of Staff, transforming the Brown Shirt Militia from a handful of hardened goons and embittered ex-soldiers into an effective fighting force five-hundred thousand strong the instrument of Nazi terror. Hitler needed Rohm's military skill and could rely on his personal loyalty.
But Hitler as Fuehrer had become frightened of Roehm's huge power in the NSDAP. Roehm's homosexuality that Hitler had ignored for over a decade was now becoming a problem for the image of the NSDAP.
On 29th June, 1934. Hitler had Ernst Roehm arrested. Among 200 other senior SA officers arrested, many were shot as soon as they were captured. Hitler decided to pardon Roehm because of his long services to the movement, but after much pressure from Goering and Himmler, Hitler agreed to eliminate him. He insisted that Roehm be allowed to commit suicide, but when he refused, two SS men shot him.
This would reduce the power of the SA. Hitler no longer needed them. The SS replaced the SA as the dominant force in Germany. The event of Roehm's murder was called The Night of the Long Knives, a turning point in the history of Hitler's Germany and the rule of the fist of the Fuehrer.
The new policies by the NSDAP on business involved new regulations to take away decisions by employers. The government banned in some cases labor machinery while employers had to get government permission before reducing the labor force. The government also preferred work contracts for those companies relying on manual labor rather than machines. This resulted in Germany developing the most efficient road system in Europe.
Taxes on new cars were eliminated, Hitler wanting every family in Germany to own a car. Hitler even became involved in designing the Volkswagen, called The People's Car.
He encouraged the mass production of radios, seeing it as a means of supplying a steady stream of Nazi propaganda to the German people right into their living rooms.
Youth unemployment was resolved by the Voluntary Labor Service and the Voluntary Youth Service, not unlike the Civilian Conservation Corps introduced by Franklin D. Roosevelt back in the United States. The Voluntary Youth Service planted forests, cleaned river banks, and assisted in the reclaiming of German wasteland.
Hitler reduced unemployment by encouraging women to leave the labor market and paying married women a lump sum of 1000 marks to stay at home.
While by 1937 unemployment was reduced to only one million people, the standard of living for employed people had not risen. Workers saw Hitler as not as smart in economic policies as others had claimed.
Early in Hitler's gain for power he became aware of the politics of Jewish money. So Hitler had begun to leave out anti-Semitic comments from his speeches during elections. This was one factor in financial contributions from German industrialists to Hitler's party.
Jewish businessmen in Germany and the rest of the world were sometimes able to use influence to prevent anti-Semitic ideas being promoted in Germany. Newspapers that didn't toe this line found Jewish businesses pulling their ads.
However once in power, Hitler began to spout anti-Semitic ideas again. It was reported that Hitler had studied America's treatment of blacks and their being denied civil rights in the early southern states in America. He thought making life difficult for Jews would make them emigrate from Germany. His efforts began in April of 1933 for a day of boycotting Jewish-owned shops. Members of the SA picketed Jewish shops to assure success.
Increased German hostility toward Jews was reflected in the decision by many shops and restaurants not to serve the Jewish population. Posters that read, "Jews not admitted" and "Jews enter this place at their own risk" began appearing across the country. In some areas Jews were banned from public parks, swimming-pools, and even public transport.
Germans were also encouraged not to use Jewish doctors and lawyers. Jewish civil servants, teachers and those employed by the mass media were fired. Members of Hitler's SA pressured Aryan Germans not to buy goods produced or manufactured by Jewish companies. The largest publisher of newspapers, books and magazines was forced to sell the company to the NSDAP in 1934 when boycotting ruined its profits.
Many Jews who could no longer earn a living left Germany. Their numbers rapidly increased after 1935. Under new laws, Jews could no longer even be citizens of Germany, and marrying Aryans became illegal.
The pressure on Jews to leave Germany intensified greatly. Hitler, Goebbels, and Heydrich organized Crystal Night on two nights in November 1938. The excuse for the violence created by NSDAP to drag Jews out of their homes was that a German diplomat had been murdered by a young Jewish refugee in Paris.
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| "The Night of Broken Glass: Synagogues were razed to the ground across the country; sacred scriptures were dragged into the street and trampled; Jewish shops and businesses were smashed and set alight in an orgy of destruction and hatred; Jews were hauled from their beds, beaten, humiliated, saw their homes destroyed and their last hope of continuing to live as citizens of a free Germany dashed." |
Over 7,500 Jewish shops and 400 synagogues were destroyed with 20,000 sent to concentration camps. Up until this time, the camps had been mainly for political prisoners. Any SA member caught raping a Jewish woman was punished for breaking the Nuremberg Laws on sexual intercourse between Aryans and Jews.
It is believed that between 1933 and 1939, approximately half the Jewish population of Germany, a quarter of a million, left the country. Included were Jewish scientists who were to play an important role in the fight against Fascism during the war. Many more Jews would have left Germany but anti-Semitism was not restricted to Germany. Many other countries wouldn't take them.
Once Hitler had been made Fuehrer, he began to plan to expand the territory he controlled to include other countries.
For the full story on Hitler's life, go to the following Web site.
- How Corporations Today Cooperate with Political Ideologies -
| IBM And Nazi Germany | Probing IBM's Nazi connection |
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| Visit Homepage |
| Excellent Norwegian documentary film on Norway's war hero, Max Manus. In this scene he is keeping Nazis from conscripting Norwegians into service for Hitler by burning the names the Nazis have on IBM punch cards. |
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November 2011
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