Nazi Germany: the story on HearLore

Nazi Germany

On the 30th of January 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, marking the beginning of a regime that would transform the nation into a totalitarian dictatorship within just twelve years. This event, known as the Machtergreifung or seizure of power, did not occur through a violent revolution but rather through a complex political maneuvering that exploited the weaknesses of the Weimar Republic. The Nazi Party, founded in 1920, had grown from a fringe group receiving 2.6 percent of the federal vote in 1928 to becoming the largest party in the Reichstag with 37.4 percent of the popular vote in the election of 1932. However, they still lacked a majority, and Hitler refused to lead a coalition government unless he was the leader. Under immense pressure from politicians, industrialists, and the business community, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler Chancellor. The path to absolute power was cleared by the Reichstag Fire on the 27th of February 1933, when a Dutch communist named Marinus van der Lubbe set the building ablaze. Hitler used this disaster to proclaim a communist uprising, leading to the Reichstag Fire Decree which rescinded civil liberties and allowed for indefinite detention without charges. By the 23rd of March 1933, the Enabling Act passed with a vote of 444 to 94, granting Hitler the power to pass laws without the consent of the president or the Reichstag. This legislation served as the legal foundation for the dictatorship, and by the 14th of July 1933, Germany became a one-party state with the passage of the Law Against the Formation of Parties. All remaining political parties were banned, and civilian organizations had their leadership replaced with Nazi sympathizers. The consolidation of power was absolute, and by the 19th of August 1934, the merger of the presidency with the chancellorship was approved by 90 percent of the electorate in a plebiscite, making Hitler the sole Führer of the German Reich.

The Architecture of Terror

The Nazi regime established a sophisticated system of terror and control that permeated every aspect of German life, beginning with the creation of concentration camps and the Gleichschaltung or coordination of all institutions. The first major Nazi concentration camp, Dachau, opened in 1933 specifically for political prisoners, and by the end of the war, hundreds of camps of varying size and function had been created. The Sturmabteilung, or Brownshirts, initially used physical violence to advance their political position, disrupting rival meetings and attacking Jewish people on the streets. However, Hitler soon turned on his own paramilitary leaders in the Night of the Long Knives, which took place from the 30th of June to the 2nd of July 1934. In this purge, up to 200 people were killed, including SA Chief of Staff Ernst Röhm and other political adversaries like Gregor Strasser and former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher. The Schutzstaffel, or SS, led by Heinrich Himmler from 1929, grew to become one of the most powerful groups in Nazi Germany, with over a quarter million members by 1938. The SS spearheaded the persecution of Jews, rounding them up into ghettos and concentration camps, and later, the Einsatzgruppen mobile death squads followed the army into Poland and the Soviet Union to murder more than two million people, including 1.3 million Jews. The Gestapo, the secret police, enforced Nazi ideology by locating and confining political offenders, Jews, and others deemed undesirable. Political offenders released from prison were often immediately re-arrested and confined in concentration camps. The legal system was twisted to serve the regime, with the establishment of the Volksgerichtshof or People's Court in 1934, which handed out over 5,000 death sentences until its dissolution in 1945. The courts issued far more death sentences than before the Nazis took power, and people convicted of three or more offenses, even petty ones, could be deemed habitual offenders and jailed indefinitely. The regime used propaganda to promulgate the concept of Rassenschande or race defilement to justify racial laws, and the Nuremberg Laws enacted in September 1935 stripped Jews and other non-Aryans of their German citizenship.

When did Adolf Hitler become Chancellor of Germany?

Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on the 30th of January 1933. This event marked the beginning of the Nazi regime and the transformation of the nation into a totalitarian dictatorship.

What laws established the Nazi one-party state?

The Enabling Act passed on the 23rd of March 1933 granted Hitler the power to pass laws without the consent of the president or the Reichstag. By the 14th of July 1933, the Law Against the Formation of Parties made Germany a one-party state by banning all remaining political parties.

How many people died in the Holocaust under the Nazi regime?

The Einsatzgruppen mobile death squads murdered more than two million people, including 1.3 million Jews. The regime also killed 19,000 Romani people at Auschwitz and over 400,000 individuals through compulsory sterilization under the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring.

When did World War II begin in Europe?

World War II in Europe began with the invasion of Poland on the 1st of September 1939. Britain and France declared war two days later after Germany invaded Poland.

What happened on the 30th of April 1945?

Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva Braun committed suicide on the 30th of April 1945 when Soviet troops were within two blocks of the Reich Chancellery. General Helmuth Weidling unconditionally surrendered Berlin to Soviet General Vasily Chuikov on the 2nd of May 1945.

The Road to War

Hitler's foreign policy was driven by a desire for Lebensraum or living space and the acquisition of resources, leading to a series of aggressive territorial demands that culminated in the invasion of Poland on the 1st of September 1939. As early as February 1933, Hitler announced that rearmament must begin, albeit clandestinely, as it violated the Treaty of Versailles. By March 1935, Hitler announced the creation of an air force and increased the Reichswehr to 550,000 men, and on the 7th of March 1936, he ordered 3,000 troops into the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland, violating the treaty. The Saarland voted to become part of Germany in January 1935, and Austria was annexed in the Anschluss of 1938 after Hitler sent an ultimatum to Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg. The Munich Agreement signed on the 29th of September 1938 forced the Czechoslovak government to accept the annexation of the Sudetenland, and six months later, the Nazis seized the remainder of Czechoslovakia. Hitler signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union on the 23rd of August 1939, which contained secret protocols dividing Poland and the Baltic states into German and Soviet spheres of influence. The invasion of Poland triggered World War II in Europe, with Britain and France declaring war two days later. Poland fell quickly, and the Soviet Union attacked from the east on the 17th of September. The period from the outbreak of war until May 1940 became known as the Phoney War, with little other activity occurring. Germany invaded Denmark and Norway on the 9th of April 1940 to safeguard iron ore shipments, and by early June, all of Norway was occupied. Against the advice of many senior military officers, Hitler ordered an attack on France and the Low Countries in May 1940, quickly conquering Luxembourg and the Netherlands and forcing the evacuation of British and French troops at Dunkirk. France surrendered on the 22nd of June 1940, and the victory resulted in an upswing in Hitler's popularity and an upsurge in war fever in Germany. The Nazis seized thousands of locomotives, rolling stock, weapons, and raw materials from France, Belgium, and Norway, and payments for occupation costs were levied upon these countries.

The War of Annihilation

The invasion of the Soviet Union on the 22nd of June 1941, codenamed Operation Barbarossa, marked a turning point in the war, as about 3.8 million Axis troops attacked the Soviet Union in a massive offensive intended to destroy the Soviet state and seize its natural resources. The reaction among Germans was one of surprise and trepidation, as many were concerned about how long the war would continue or suspected that Germany could not win a war fought on two fronts. The invasion conquered a huge area, including the Baltic states, Belarus, and west Ukraine, but Hitler's decision to halt the advance to Moscow and divert Panzer groups to aid in the encirclement of Leningrad and Kiev provided the Red Army with an opportunity to mobilize fresh reserves. The Moscow offensive, which resumed in October 1941, ended disastrously in December. On the 7th of December 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and four days later, Germany declared war on the United States. The Red Army launched a counter-offensive on the 19th of November 1942, encircling Axis forces trapped in Stalingrad, where 200,000 German and Romanian soldiers died, and only 6,000 of the 91,000 men who surrendered on the 31st of January 1943 returned to Germany after the war. Losses continued to mount after Stalingrad, leading to a sharp reduction in the popularity of the Nazi Party and deteriorating morale. Soviet forces continued to push westward after the failed German offensive at the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943. By the end of 1943, the Germans had lost most of their eastern territorial gains. In Egypt, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps were defeated by British forces under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery in October 1942. The Allies landed in Sicily in July 1943 and were on the Italian peninsula by September. Meanwhile, American and British bomber fleets based in Britain began operations against Germany, targeting aircraft factories and the Peenemünde Army Research Center where V-1 and V-2 rockets were being developed. By late 1944, the armaments industry began to break down, and by November, fuel coal was no longer reaching its destinations, making the production of new armaments impossible. The bombing campaign, which targeted oil refineries and factories, crippled the German war effort and forced it to divert up to one-fourth of its manpower and industry into anti-aircraft resources, which likely shortened the war.

The Holocaust and Racial Policy

Racism and antisemitism were basic tenets of the Nazi Party and the Nazi regime, with the postulation of a racial conflict between the Aryan master race and inferior races, particularly Jews, who were viewed as a mixed race that had infiltrated society. Discrimination against Jews began immediately after the seizure of power, with a month-long series of attacks by members of the SA on Jewish businesses and synagogues, followed by a national boycott of Jewish businesses on the 1st of April 1933. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service passed on the 7th of April forced all non-Aryan civil servants to retire from the legal profession and civil service. A nationwide book burning was held on the 10th of May, and on the 7th of November 1938, a young Jewish man named Herschel Grynszpan shot and killed Ernst vom Rath, a legation secretary at the German embassy in Paris, providing the pretext for a pogrom known as Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass. At least 91 German Jews were murdered during this pogrom, and the Jewish community was fined one billion marks to pay for the damage. By 1939, around 250,000 of Germany's 437,000 Jews had emigrated, but many chose to stay in continental Europe. The Romani people were also subjected to persecution, with 23,000 Romani deported to Auschwitz concentration camp, of whom 19,000 died. Action T4 was a program of systematic murder of the physically and mentally handicapped that took place mainly from 1939 to 1941, and over 400,000 individuals underwent compulsory sterilization under the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring enacted on the 14th of July 1933. The Generalplan Ost aimed to conquer Poland and the Soviet Union, with the intention to clear the General Government of ethnic Poles and resettled by German colonists within 15 to 20 years. About 3.8 to 4 million Poles would remain as slaves, part of a slave labor force of 14 million the Nazis intended to create using citizens of conquered nations. The Hunger Plan, which would have led to the starvation of 80 million people in the Soviet Union, was partially fulfilled, resulting in the democidal deaths of an estimated 19.3 million civilians and prisoners of war throughout the USSR and elsewhere in Europe. During the course of the war, the Soviet Union lost a total of 27 million people, less than nine million of whom were combat deaths.

The Final Collapse

The final months of the war were marked by massive destruction and a refusal by Hitler to admit defeat, leading to unnecessary death and destruction in the war's closing months. On the 6th of June 1944, American, British, and Canadian forces established a front in France with the D-Day landings in Normandy. On the 20th of July 1944, Hitler survived an assassination attempt, and he ordered brutal reprisals, resulting in 7,000 arrests and the execution of more than 4,900 people. The failed Ardennes Offensive from the 16th of December 1944 to the 25th of January 1945 was the last major German offensive on the western front, and Soviet forces entered Germany on the 27th of January. Hitler ordered the destruction of transport, bridges, industries, and other infrastructure in a scorched earth decree, but Armaments Minister Albert Speer prevented this order from being fully carried out. During the Battle of Berlin from the 16th of April to the 2nd of May 1945, Hitler and his staff lived in the underground Führerbunker while the Red Army approached. On the 30th of April, when Soviet troops were within two blocks of the Reich Chancellery, Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun, committed suicide. On the 2nd of May, General Helmuth Weidling unconditionally surrendered Berlin to Soviet General Vasily Chuikov. Hitler was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as Reich President and Joseph Goebbels as Reich Chancellor. Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide the next day after murdering their six children. Between the 4th and the 8th of May 1945, most of the remaining German armed forces unconditionally surrendered, and the German Instrument of Surrender was signed on the 8th of May, marking the end of the Nazi regime and the end of World War II in Europe. Popular support for Hitler almost completely disappeared as the war drew to the close, and suicide rates in Germany increased, particularly in areas where the Red Army was advancing. Among soldiers and party personnel, suicide was often deemed an honorable and heroic alternative to surrender. First-hand accounts and propaganda about the uncivilized behavior of the advancing Soviet troops caused panic among civilians on the Eastern Front, especially women, who feared being raped. More than a thousand people committed suicide in Demmin around the 1st of May 1945, and high numbers of suicides took place in many other locations, including Neubrandenburg with 600 dead, Stolp in Pommern with 1,000 dead, and Berlin, where at least 7,057 people committed suicide in 1945. German casualties ranged from 5.5 to 6.9 million persons, with 5.3 million military dead and missing, and 353,000 civilians killed in Allied air raids.