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”
- 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
- 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)
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Nazis boycott Jewish-owned businesses
- 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
- All Jewish children are expelled from public schools in Germany and Austria
- Nazis take control of Jewish-owned businesses
- 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
- Nazis begin deporting German Jews to Poland
- Jews are forced into ghettos
- Nazis begin the first mass murder of Jews in Poland
- Jews throughout Eastern Europe are forced into ghettos
- In two days, German units shoot 33,771 Ukrainian Jews at BabiYar - the largest single massacre of the Holocaust
- The death camp at Chelmno in Poland begins murdering Jews
- Nazi officials announce "Final Solution" - their plan to kill all European Jews
- Five death camps begin operation in Poland: Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka, Belzec, and Auschwitz-Birkenau
- Ghettos of Eastern Europe are being emptied as thousands of Jews are shipped to death camps
- The United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union acknowledge that German are exterminating the Jews of Europe
- Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto resist as the Nazis begin new rounds of deportations. These Jews hold out for nearly a month before the Nazis put down the uprising
- Hitler takes over Hungary and begins deporting 12,000 Hungarian Jews each day to Auschwitz where they are murdered
- Hitler is defeated and World War II ends in Europe
- The Holocaust is over and the death camps are emptied
- Many survivors are placed in displaced persons camps until they find a country willing to accept them
- The United Nations establishes a Jewish homeland in British-controlled Palestine, which becomes the State of Israel in 1948
Russia/Soviet Union/USSR
Russia dropped out of WW I due to the Bolshevik Revolution.
Economically and physically, it was in terrible shape.
Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin)
Lenin emerged as the leader of the communists.
Lenin was a big Marxist supporter
- Marx never outlined how exactly to reach a classless society so Lenin and the government took control of the economy and farms with a promise to eventually give it back to the peasants.
- Communism Practice: totalitarian government - government controlled everything
- Communism Theory
- Karl Marx - wrote Communist Manifesto - Vast majority of the people, common people, will rise up and overthrow the government/leaders and have a classless society where everyone is equal
Lenin organized the country into a federation of republics
- The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Lenin died in 1924
Power struggled ensued between Leon Trotsky and Josef Stalin.
Stalin would win.
Josef Stalin
Wanted to focus on building up the Soviet Union’s economy
Eliminated political opponents in great purges(800,000)
Wanted nationalization and collectivization of the economy
- gov’t took control of industry/businesses (nationalization)
- abolished private ownership (upset Kulaks)
- taking over farms (collectivization)
- forced peasants to merge their land into large collective
Farms (collectivization)
The Kulaks resisted and Stalin used the secret police to kill them
Stalin admitted that at least 10 million people died due to collectivization and famine
Five Year Plans
- Stalin’s idea of economic growth for industry and agriculture
- Goals were to be met in a five year time frame
- Wasn’t until the third 5 Year Plan did the economy start to improve
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