1933-1945 Nazi Germany: The

Big Questions.....

How did Hitler become dictator of Germany?

• Reichstag Fire Feb 1933• Enabling Act March 1933: makes Germany a one party

state• Regional governments abolished• Trade unions removed• Secure relationship with Army• Propaganda• Terror• Weakness of opposition• Death of Hindenburg• Gleichschaltung

How did Hitler prepare Germany for war?

• Four Year Plan: 1936: Germany must be prepared for war, increase production of raw materials, develop ersatz (substitute) products, increase agricultural production

• Guns vs Butter debate• Autarky• Increase military expenditure

Social Policy: Traditional or Radical?

• Traditional: gender roles• Traditional view of women, appearence• Stressed in education

• Radical: removal of non-Aryans

Image vs Reality

• Image of Hitler as a strong leader• Reality: badly organised, lazy, focus on foreign

policy

• Image of Gestapo as all seeing all powerful body

• Reality: few Gestapo officers, bogged down in bureaucracy

Image vs Reality

• Image: Strong, Organised government• Reality: Chaotic, over lapping ministries, Four

Year Plan// Ministry of Economics. Polycracy: system of overlapping ministries. Cabinet meetings became more infrequent.

72 times in 1933, 4 times in 1936. After 1938 it didn’t meet at all.

Was the style of government intended?

• No: evidence of Hitler’s lack of organisational skills

• Yes: belief in Social Darwinism would reward the most committed. Hitler wanted to keep leading Nazis on their toes: Goering kept out of policy meetings after 1941, Hess adopted deputy because he wasn’t a threat to Hitler.

Intentionalists vs Structuralists

• Intentionalists: Polycratic nature of the Third Reich was deliberately extended by Hitler, partly in order to ‘divide and rule’. “Hitler was the master of the Third Reich”

• Structuralists: Hitler was indecisive, lazy and easily manipulated. As a result, the chaotic nature of National Socialism spiralled into criminal brutality and lawlessness. “ Hitler was a weak dictator”

How did the Holocaust happen?• Anti Semitism existed in Germany before 19331. 1933 April: Boycott, removal of Jews from teaching

posts, lawyers. Anti-Semitic propaganda and education2. 1935 September: Nuremberg Laws: Reich Citizenship

Act and Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour

3. 1938 November: Kristallnacht4. 1939: Creation of the Reich Central Office for Jewish

Emigration5. 1942 January: Wannsee Conference: Final Solution.

Chaired by Eichmann

How did the Holocaust happen?

• Initial arrangements were haphazard and the Nazis did not have any clear programme to deal with the Jewish question until 1941

• No written order for killing the Jews from Hitler has ever been found.

• Probably around autumn 1941 it was decided by the top Nazi leadership to launch an extermination policy, this was agreed at Wannsee.