GRADE- IX

SOCIAL SCIENCE
HISTORY- CH-3: NAZISM AND THE RISE OF HITLER
SESSION:-2022-2023
NOTES

IMACT OF THE WORLD WAR 1 ON EUROPE:-

• The war had a devastating impact on the entire continent both psychologically and financially.
• From being a creditor, Europe became a debtor.

IMMEDIATE IMPACT OF THE WORLD WAR 1 ON GERMANY:-

1] Germany with other countries of Central Powers was defeated in the 1st World War.
2] Monarchy was abolished
3] Birth of the Weimer Republic

BIRTH OF THE WEIMER REPUBLIC:-

 The Allies won defeating Germany [Central Powers] with the entry of USA in 1917-18.
 This gave opportunity to the political parties to reframe German politics.
 A National Assembly was formed at Weimer.
 A democratic constitution was formed.

STRUCTURE:-
• Democratic constitution with a federal structure.
• It was chosen through Universal Adult Franchise.

WORKING:-
• Deputies were elected to the German Parliament or Reichstag
 Most of the members of Weimar Republic were Liberal, Socialist Catholics.

IMPACT OF THE WORLD WAR 1 ON GERMANY

PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT:-
 Weimer Republic was held responsible for Germany’s humiliation.
 It carried the burden of the war guilt.
 The supporters of Weimer Republic were called as November Criminals.

SOCIAL IMPACT:-
• The civilians were placed above civilians.
• Aggressive war propaganda resulted in support for conservative dictatorship.
• Politicians stressed on the need for men to be aggressive and strong.
• People started supporting Dictatorship over democracy in Germany.

POLITICAL IMPACT:-
• Revolutionary uprising of the Sparta cist League.
 Weimar Republic became unpopular in Germany.
• Opponents of Weimar Republic demanded for of Soviet type of govt. in Berlin.
ECONOMIC IMPACT:-
• German economy was hit badly.
• France captures its leading industrial region.
• Depletion of gold reserves.

TREATY OF VERSAILLES:-
 It was the humiliating treaty imposed on Germany after its defeat in the WW1 by the Allies.
 It was signed in the Palace of Versailles, France.

As per the Treaty Germany lost the following:-

 All its overseas colonies.
 13 percent of its territories.
 75 percent of its iron deposits.
 26 percent of its coal reserves.
 Allied Powers demilitarized Germany
 Germany had to pay compensation of 6 billion pounds.

POLITICAL RADICALISM:-
• The Sparta cist League was a radical group, set up on the pattern of the Bolshevik Party of Russia.
• It opposed the Weimar Republic through protest marches and Rallies.
• Political radicalization was heightened with the economic crisis of 1923.
• The Weimar Republic crushed the uprising of Sparta cist League with the help of a war veteran organization
called Free Corps.
 The suppressed members of the league later founded the Communist Party of Germany.

THE ECONOMIC CRISIS OF 1923-24

 Germany had fought the war largely on loans.
 It had to pay war reparations to Allied powers in gold but all the gold reserves depleted soon.
 As Germany refused to pay the war reparations, France occupied its leading industrial area, Ruhr.
 Germany retaliated by printing paper currency recklessly.
 As a result, value of the German currency, mark collapsed.

HYPERINFLATION:-
 With too much printed money in circulation, the value of the German mark fell and prices of goods soared.
 This crisis came to be known as hyperinflation or a situation when prices rise phenomenally high.

DAWES PLAN:-
 The Americans bailed Germany out of the crisis by introducing the Dawes Plan.
• This plan reworked on the terms of reparation to ease the financial burden on Germans by giving short time
loans.
• Condition of Germany improved and became stable with the Dawes plan.
• As Germany had to return the loan amount to USA in smaller installments.
THE YEARS OF DEPRESSION:-1929-32
 The condition of Germany became stable between1924-28.
 But USA withdrew its support in 1929 with the fall of Wall Street exchange.
 As a result, people started selling their shares and that marked the beginning of the Great Economic
Depression in the World.

FALL OF WALL STREET EXCHANGE:-

 It is the world’s biggest stock exchange in the USA.
 Fearing a fall in prices, people made frantic efforts to sell their shares.
 On one single day, 24 October, 13 million shares were sold and with this World had entered the GREAT
DEPRESSION.

EFFECTS OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION ON USA:-

 Between 1929 and 1932, the national income of the USA fell by half.
 Factories shut down and exports fell.
 Farmers were badly hit.
 Speculators withdrew their money from the market.
 The effects of this recession in the US economy were felt worldwide.

EFFECTS OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION ON GERMANY:-

 Germany lost receiving short-term loans from US.
 In unemployment reached around 6 million by 1932.
 Industrial production reduced to 40%
 Workers lost their jobs.
 Youth:-took to criminal activities.
• Salaried employees and pensioners:- Saw their savings diminish when the currency lost its value.
• Small businessmen, self-employed and retailers:- Suffered as their businesses got ruined.
• Organized workers:- Could manage to earn , but they lost bargaining power.
• Peasantry:- Was affected by a sharp fall in agricultural prices.
• Women:- Were unable to feed their children and felt guilty for it.
 The middle class and working population:- was filled with the fear of proletarianization [fear to
become impoverished to the level of working classes] as their savings disappeared.
• People lost confidence in the democratic parliamentary system, which seemed to offer no solutions.

END OF WEIMAR REPUBLIC:-

 Weimar republic was unpopular. politically weak and fragile.

 It had many defects from the time of its formation that became responsible of its end.
1] Proportional representation
2] Article 48 gave President powers to impose emergency, suspend civil rights and rule by decree.
3] The republic was not received well by its own people largely because it had to accept the peace treaty of
Versailles after Germany’s defeat.
 IMPORTANT FACTS TO REMEMBER:-

 In May 1945, Germany surrendered to the Allies after getting defeated in the WW2.
 Hitler, his propaganda minister Goebbels and his family committed suicide in the Berlin bunker in April
1945.
 An International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg was set up to prosecute Nazi war criminals for:-
1. Crimes against Peace,
2. for War Crimes and
3. Crimes against Humanity.
 Under the shadow of the Second World War, Germany had waged a genocidal war.
 Nazis did mass killing of selected groups of innocent civilians of Europe.
 The number of people killed included 6 million Jews, 200,000 Gypsies, 1 million Polish civilians.
 Nazis devised an unprecedented means of killing people, that is, by gassing them in various killing centres
like Auschwitz.
 The Nuremberg Tribunal sentenced only 11leading Nazis to death,many others were imprisoned for life.
 Genocidal – Killing on large scale leading to destruction of large sections of people.
 Deplete – Reduce, empty out
 Reparation – Make up for a wrong done

HITLER’S RISE TO POWER:-

FAILED MILITARY COUP AND NAZI POPULARITY:-

• Hitler planned a coup over Bavaria and Berlin in 1923.
• He failed in his attempt, was arrested and tried in the court for treason but was later released.
• Nazi Party was unable to gather the support of common people till 1929.
• Soon after the Great Depression, Nazi party gained popularity.
• Nazism became a mass movement only during the period of Great Depression. By 1932, it had become the
largest party with 37 % votes in the elections.

HITLER’S PROMISES:-
 To build a strong Nation, bring back the lost glory and dignity of Germany by undoing(reversing) the
humiliations at the Versailles.
 To create employment and secure the future of the youth.
 To weed out all foreign influences and conspiracies against Germany.

HITLER’S NEW POLITICAL STRATEGIES:-

• He understood the significance of rituals in the mass mobilization and to attract the mob or crowd.
• He organized rallies to instill unity amongst people.
• He introduced various rituals in the rallies to attract people like:-
 Red banners with the symbol of Swastik,
 the Nazi Salute,
 Different styles of applaud.

THE DESTRUCTION OF DEMOCRACY:-

 President Hidenburg offered chancellorship to Hitler on 30 January 1933After getting the power and position,
he tried to dismantle the structures of democratic structure of Germany in the following ways:-
• A mysterious Fire Decree of 28 February 1933in Reichstag that helped him to suspend all the civic
rights like freedom of speech, press and assembly
• The Communists , were hurriedly packed off and sent to the newly established concentration camps as
they were his political enemies.
• On 3rd March 1933, Enacting Act was passed through which He could make any law sideline the
democratically elected legislative members(Parliament) and that made him the Dictator of Germany.
• He quickly acquired all the powers and established complete control over economy, media, army and
judiciary. All political parties and trade unions were banned except for the Nazi Party and its affiliates.

Special surveillance and security forces were established to control law and order in the society and to hire to
keep a check on the movement of the people. The special agencies included:-
 Regular police in green uniform,
 SA or the storm troopers,
 Gestapo (secret state police),
 SS (the protection squads),
 Criminal police and
 SD(the security service)

NAZI STATE BECAME THE MOST DREADED CRIMINAL STATE UNDER HITLER:-
Some extra-constitutional powers were given to these newly organized forces.
People could now be detained and sent to:-
 Gestapo torture chambers,
 Concentration camps,
 Deported at will or
 Arrested without any legal procedures.
 The police forces also acquired powers to rule with impunity.

RECONSTRUCTION OF GERMAN ECONOMY:-

 Economist Hjalmar Schacht was given the responsibility of Germany’s economic recovery.
 State funded work creation programme was started to get huge employment and production.
 The state funded projects produced the famous German superhighways.
 Manufacture of the famous people’s car, the Volkswagen also started.

HITLER’S AGGRESSIVE FOREIGN POLICY TO MAKE GERMANY A POWERFUL NATION:-

• He pulled out Germany from The League of Nations in 1933.
• Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936.
• He integrated Austria and Germany in 1938 with the slogan ‘One People, One Nation, One Leader’.
• Acquired German-speaking Sudetenland and later entire Czechoslovakia.
• Germany invaded Poland in September 1940.

GERMANY AND THE WORLD WAR- II:-

 Hitler’s desire of more resources and territories resulted in annexation of Poland in 1939.
 It became the immediate cause of WWII as this started Germany’s war with England and France.
 Hitler signed a Tripartite Pact with Japan and Italy in 1940.
 He attacked Soviet Union in 1941 which was his greatest blunder as he exposed the Eastern front to Russia.
 USA had not joined the war but eventually became a part of it when Japan attacked the Pearl Harbor in 1945.
 USA concluded the war by dropping the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki of Japan.
 Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30th 1945.
 Germany surrendered to allied powers on May 15th 1945.

THE NAZI WORLD VIEW AND HITLER’S IDEA OF RACISM:-

 Hitler borrowed the idea of racism from two philosophers-Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer.
 His ideology was influenced by their concepts of evolution and natural selections and the idea of survival of the
fittest.
 According to Nazi ideology there was no equality between people, but only racial hierarchy.
 Nordic German Aryans were kept at the top, while Jews were at the lowest while all other races are between
them depending on their external physical features.
 According to him Aryans were the finest race and were born to dominate the world others were undesirable
whom He wished to eliminate.
 He wanted an exclusive society only of pure and healthy Nordic Aryans.
 Jews, gypsies, blacks, Russian, Poles, even certain Germans and abnormal were considered undesirable
 Through Euthanasia many physically and mentally challenged people were killed.

LEBENSRAUM, OR LIVING SPACE:-

 Hitler acquired new territories for settlement of Nordic German Aryans race.
 There were two objectives of this Lebensraum programme:-
 It would also enhance the material resources and power of the German nation.
 It would also arrange for new space for pure Aryans who were brought from different parts of Europe to settle
in the Nazi state.
 Hitler intended to extend German boundaries by moving eastwards, to concentrate all Germans geographically
in one place.
 Poland became the laboratory for this experimentation.

JEWS IN GERMANY:-
 Jews were the worst sufferers in Nazi Germany.
 They were stereotyped as the killer of Jesus Christ.
 Hitler believed in pseudoscientific theories of race which said that conversion was no solution to the Jewish
problem.
 It had to be solved through their total elimination.
 They were not allowed to own land and were forcefully sent to the separately marked areas called Ghettos and
later to the gas chambers.

THE NUREMBERG LAWS OF CITIZENSHIP OF SEPTEMBER 1935:

JEWS WERE DENIED OF VARIOUS RIGHTS IN NAZI REGIME :-
 Only Persons of German or related blood would henceforth be German
 citizens enjoying the protection of the German empire.
 Marriages between Jews and Germans were forbidden.
 Extramarital relations between Jews and Germans became a crime.
 Jews were forbidden to fly the national flag.
 JEWS WERE ELIMINATED IN THREE STAGES FROM GERMANY:-
STAGE 1:-EXCLUSION( YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO LIVE AMONG US AS CITIZENS)
Between 1933–1938, they were terrorized, pauperized and segregated and compelled them to leave the country.
 Boycott of Jewish businesses.
 Expulsion from government services
 Forced selling and confiscation of their properties

STAGE 2:-GHETTOIZATION (YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO LIVE AMONG US

Between1940–1944, it aimed at concentrating them in certain areas
 From September 1941, all Jews had to wear a yellow Star of David on their breasts.
 This identity mark was stamped on their passport, all legal documents and houses.
 They were kept in Jewish houses in Germany, and in ghettos like Lodz and Warsaw in the east.
 These became sites of extreme misery and poverty.
 Jews had to surrender all their wealth before they entered a ghetto. Soon the ghettos were filled with hunger,
starvation and disease due to deprivation and poor hygiene.

STAGE 3:- ANHILATION (YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO LIVE)

Between1941-1945
 Jews from Jewish houses, concentration camps and ghettos from different parts of Europe were brought to death
factories by goods trains.
 In Poland and in Belzek, Auschwitz, Sobibor, Treblinka, Chelmno and Majdanek, they were burnt in gas
chambers.
 Mass killings took place within minutes with scientific accuracy.

THE RACIAL UTOPIAIN POLAND:-

 Genocide and war became two sides of the same coin.
 Occupied Poland was divided.
 Poles were forced to leave their homes.
 Educated Polish classes were murdered.
 Polish children who looked like Aryans were forcibly snatched from their mothers and examined by ‘race
experts’.
 If they passed the race tests they were raised in German families and if not, they were deposited in orphanages
where most of them died.

YOUTH IN NAZI GERMANY:-

 Hitler believed that a strong Nazi society could be established only by teaching children Nazi ideology.
 Children were divided into two groups — desirable and undesirable.
 All schools were cleansed and purified [Jews teachers and children were dismissed]
 Jews, the physically handicapped and Gypsies were thrown out of schools and later sent to the gas chambers.
 Textbooks were re written, functions of sports in schools were to nurture the spirit of violence and aggression.
 Boys were taught to be aggressive, masculine and steel hearted.
 Racial science was introduced to justify Nazi ideas of race.
 Children were taught to be loyal and submissive, hate Jews, and worship Hitler.
 Hitler believed that boxing could make children iron hearted, strong and masculine.

SCHOOLING FOR BOYS IN NAZI GERMANY:-

 Good German’ children were subjected to a process of Nazi schooling, that was a prolonged period of
ideological training.
 Youth organizations were made responsible for educating German youth in the ‘the spirit of National
Socialism’.

1] JUNGVOLK (10 to14 years)

2] HITLER YOUTH (14 to 18 years)
3] LABOUR SERVICE at the age 18, they were asked to join Army or civil ervices(any one of the Nazi
organizations)

THE NAZI VIEW ON WOMEN

 Children in Nazi Germany were repeatedly told that women were radically different from men.
 Girls had to maintain the purity of the race, distance themselves from Jews.
 They had to look after the home, and teach their children Nazi values.
 They had to be the bearers of the Aryan culture and race.

THE NAZI CULT OF MOTHERHOOD:-

 All mothers were not treated equally in the Nazi Germany.
 The only aim of the girls was to become good mothers and rear pure-blooded Aryan children.

WOMEN WHO PRODUCED RACIALLY WOMEN WHO BORE RACIALLY

DESIRABLE CHILDREN WERE AWARDED. UNDESIRABLE CHILDREN WERE PUNISHED.
They were given favoured treatment in hospitals. Women who didn’t follow prescribed code of conduct
Were also entitled to concessions in shops, theatre were publicly condemned, and severely punished.
tickets and railway fares.
Honour Crosses were awarded to encourage women Those who maintained contact with Jews, Poles and
to produce many children. Russians were paraded through the town with shaved
heads, blackened faces and placards hanging around
their necks announcing ‘I have sullied the honour of
the nation’.
A bronze cross was given for four children, silver Many received jail sentences and lost civic honour as
for six and gold for eight or more. well as their husbands and families for this ‘criminal
offence’

THE ART OF PROPAGANDA:-

 The Nazi regime used language and media with care and often to great effect.
 They used films, pictures, radio, posters, etc. to spread hatred for Jews.
 Nazis never used the words ‘kill’ or ‘murder’ in their official communications.
 Mass killings were termed as special treatment, final solution, euthanasia, selection and disinfection.
 Nazi ideas were spread through visual images, films, radio, posters, catchy slogans and leaflets.

SPREADING HATRED AGAINST JEWS AND UNDESIRABLES:-

Nazism worked on the minds of the people, tapped their emotions, and turned their hatred and anger at those
marked as ‘undesirable’.
 In posters, enemies of Germans such as Jews were shown as evil, stereotyped, mocked, abused.
 Socialists and liberals were represented as weak and degenerate, they were attacked as hateful foreign agents.
 Propaganda films were made to create hatred for Jews, the most infamous film was The Eternal Jew.
 Orthodox Jews were stereotyped and marked.
 They were shown with flowing beards wearing kaftans.
 They were referred to as vermin, rats and pests
 Their movements were compared to those of rodents.

ORDINARY PEOPLE AND THE CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY:-

Common people reacted to Nazism in different ways:-

1] SUPPORTERS:-
 Many were influence by the idea of Nazi, they saw the world through Nazi eyes and spoke Nazi language.
 They felt hatred and anger when they saw someone who looked like a Jew.
 They marked the houses of Jews and reported suspicious neighbours.
 They believed that Nazism would bring prosperity and improve general well-being

2] OPPONENTS:-
 Not every German was a Nazi. Many organized active resistance to Nazism.
 They faced police repression and were killed.

3] SILENT OBSERVERS / NEUTRAL PEOPLE:-

 The large majority of Germans were passive onlookers.
 They were too scared to act, to differ or to protest.
 They preferred to look away and kept quiet.

4] JEWS:-
 Jews began to believe in the Nazi stereotypes about them.
 They dreamt of their hooked noses, black hair and eyes, Jewish looks and body movements.
 The stereotypical images publicized in the Nazi press haunted the Jews.
 Jews died many deaths before they actually reached the gas chamber to die.

NOTE:-
 Charlotte Beradt secretly recorded people’s dreams in her diary and later published them in a book called the
Third Reich of Dreams.

KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST:-

• It was only after the WW-II ended that world came to know about what had happened in Nazi Germany.
The Jews wanted the world to remember the atrocities and sufferings they had endured during the Nazi killing
operations.
• So, they collected and preserved documents, wrote diaries, kept notebooks, and created archives which are
called the Holocaust.
• Nazi leadership distributed petrol to destroy all incriminating evidence available in offices before their defeat
in WW II.
Yet the history and the memory of the Holocaust live on in memoirs, fiction, documentaries, poetry, memorials
and museums in many parts of the world today.