HITLER’S NAZI GERMANY

The Nazis Consolidate Power 2

The Economic Program

• Repression Masked by Economic Revival

• Lebensraum

• Hitler’s Economic Aims

Public Works – The Autobahn

Rearmament

Hitler Crushes the Stormtroopers – The Night of Long Knives

• Distrust Among Senior Nazi Officials – Himmler & Roehm

• Hitler’s Need To Protect His Power

• The Need to Placate the Army & Big Business

• Hitler Moves on the SA

Hitler Crushes the Stormtroopers – The Night of Long Knives

The Last Piece Falls – the Death of Hindenburg

Why Did Hitler Succeed?

• Sense of the Moment

• Promise of Renewal

• The Reality of Nazi Dictatorship

Nazi Energy or a Broken Down System?

What was compelling about Hitler and what distinguished him from other right-wing parties were not only the external trappings – the feverish activity, the endless marching, the mass rallies, and the ceaseless propaganda drives – important though these were in gathering votes, but above all the ruthless will to victory and a fanatical sense of commitment emanating from the Fuehrer and his followers.

- Richard Evans

Nazi Energy or a Broken Down System?

The best conditions for the triumph of the crazy ultra-right were an old state and its ruling mechanism which could no longer function; a mass of disenchanted, disorientated and discontented citizens who no longer knew where their loyalties lay; strong socialist movements threatening or appearing to threaten social revolution, but not actually in a position to achieve it; and a move of national resentment against the peace treaties of 1918-1920.

- Eric Hobsbawm