Hitler was imprisoned for treason because he tried to take over the government. He wrote Mein Kampf while in prison. He talked about his anti-Semitic (anti-Jewish) beliefs, how he hated democracy (giving power to the people), wanted to undo the Treaty of Versailles, and he wanted living space in Germany (Soviet Union). He tried to run for president and lost. The Great Depression came and people started looking for a way out. They all turned toward Communism.
Propaganda is something used to try to persuade people.
While in prison he wrote his book Mein Kampf (My Struggle)
Outlined Hitler’s ideas:
1. Aryans were the superior race
- Germans, Dutch, Belgians, Scandinavians and English
- No interbreeding
2. Anti-Semitic beliefs
- Hated Jews, inferior race
- Hitler associated them with the Weimer Republic and Communism
3. Hated democracy
- Believed one person had to have the power to keep order and discipline
4. Undo the Treaty of Versailles
5. Re-unite German speaking peoples
- Austria, Sudetenland, Danzig, Poland
6. Lebensraum
- “Living space” in Russia for the German People
- Hitler also learned that he would have to come to power legally
- January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany
- Within 18 months Hitler had total power and created “The Third Reich”
Holocaust
- The genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II.
- A program of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany throughout Nazi-occupied territory.
- Approximately two-thirds of the population of nine million Jews who had lived in Europe before the Holocaust died
Who was killed in the Holocaust?
- Jews (6 million dead)
- Gypsies (500,000 to 1.5 million)
- Mentally/Physically Handicapped people (75,000 to 250,000)
- Soviet Slaves/POW's/Troops (16.5 million)
- Poles (2.5 million)
- Homosexuals (5-15 thousand)
- Communists/Socialists (many but number not confirmed)
- Dark skinned people (death and forced sterilization)
- Mixed races
- Jehovah's Witnesses (2,500-5,000)
What is the Aryan Race?
- Misused by the Nazis to mean a so-called master race that originated around Germany
- Perfect Aryan was blonde, blue-eyed, tall and muscular
- The original term refers to a people speaking a Indo-European dialect
Lebensborn - Fount of Life
- The program aimed to promote the growth of "superior" Aryan populations by providing excellent health care and living conditions to women and by restricting access to those deemed "fit"
- Houses were set up throughout Germany and many occupied territories
- Many Lebensborn children were born to unwed mothers which helped lead to many rumors of rape
Hitler's Jewish Question - 1933
- Nazis "temporarily" suspend civil liberties for all citizens in 1933 - never restored
- The Nazis set up the first concentration camp at Dachau in 1933 - the first inmates are 200 Communists
- Jews are prohibited from working as civil servants, doctors in the National Health Service and teachers in public high schools
- All but few Jewish students are banned from public high schools and colleges
Nuremburg Laws - 1935
- Took away German citizenship from Jews thus making Jews second class citizens by removing their basic civil rights
- Established membership in the Jewish race as being anyone who either considered themselves Jewish or had three or four Jewish grandparents
- People with one or two Jewish grandparents were considered to be mixed race
- Eventually anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent was at risk in Nazi Germany
- Jews could only marry Jews
- No sexual relations between non-Jewish Germans and Jews
1936
- Nazis boycott Jewish-owned businesses
Kristallnacht - 1938 - "Night of the Broken Glass"
- On the nights of November 9 and 10, 1938, gangs of Nazi youth roamed through Jewish neighborhoods breaking windows of Jewish businesses and homes, burning synagogues and looting
- In all, 101 synagogues were destroyed and almost 7,500 Jewish businesses were destroyed
- 26,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps
- Jews were physically attacked and beaten and 91 died in the attack
1938
- All Jewish children are expelled from public schools in Germany and Austria
- Nazis take control of Jewish-owned businesses
1939
- Hitler orders the systematic murder of the mentally and physically disabled in Germany and Austria
- Jews are required to wear armbands or yellow stars to discriminate them from others
1940
- Nazis begin deporting German Jews to Poland
- Jews are forced into ghettos
- Nazis begin the first mass murder of Jews in Poland
Comments