WORLD WAR I.
OTTO VON BISMARCK ALLIANCES
EUROPE 1914.
TERRITORIAL CHANGES.
SPANISH FLU.
The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. There have been claims that the epidemic originated in the United States. Historian Alfred W. Crosby claimed that the flu originated in Kansas, and popular author John Barry described Haskell County, Kansas, as the point of origin. It has also been claimed that, by late 1917, there had already been a first wave of the epidemic in at least 14 US military camps. It spread worldwide during 1918-1919. In the United States, it was first identified in military personnel in spring 1918. It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States.
To maintain morale, wartime censors minimized early reports of illness and mortality in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. Newspapers were free to report the epidemic’s effects in neutral. These stories created a false impression of Spain as especially hard hit, thereby giving rise to the pandemic’s nickname, «Spanish flu».
SOVIET UNION: A COMMUNIST REVOLUTION, A COMMUNIST STATE.
RUSSIA 1905.
Rusia no es un país industrializado. La revolución industrial sólo ha llegado a algunos lugares como San Petersburgo, la capital del imperio de los zares. El resto del territorio aún sigue siendo predominantemente rural. Hace apenas unas décadas se ha liberado a los campesinos de la servidumbre hacia los nobles. El ejército zarista está más enfocado a ser un agente de represión interna que de conquista externa. En 1905 por vez primera un país europeo será derrotado por un asiático: Japón. La mala marcha de la guerra unido a la escasez de alimentos hace que la población reclame mejoras. El 9 de enero una multitud de gente se dirige al palacio del zar para entregar un escrito demandando mejores condiciones laborales y de vida. Las tropas de palacio reprimieron salvajemente la protesta. Campesinos, obreros, intelectuales y liberales se unirán para demandar un cambio político al zar. Será la revolución de 1905 que concluirá cuando el zar prometa una Constitución para Rusia y una Duma o Parlamento con poderes. Sin embargo, todo fue una farsa, a los pocos meses el zar cerró el Parlamento y siguió gobernando de forma absoluta.
RUSIA 1917.
WLADIMIR ILICH ULIANOV «LENIN».
He was born Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov on April 22, 1870, in Simbirsk, Russia, which was later renamed Ulyanovsk in his honor. In 1887 Lenin’s older brother, Aleksandr, a university student at the time, was arrested and executed for being a part of a group planning to assassinate Emperor Alexander III. Lenin’s high school principal (the father of Aleksandr Kerensky, who was later to lead the Provisional government deposed by Lenin’s Bolsheviks)) courageously wrote a character reference that smoothed Lenin’s admission to a university.
Lenin enrolled at Kazan University to study law but during his first term, he was expelled for taking part in an illegal student assembly. During this period of time, he met exiled revolutionaries and read revolutionary political literature. After much petitioning, Lenin was granted permission to take his law examinations and in November 1891 he obtained a degree in Law.
In 1893 he moved to Saint Petersburg. There, Lenin and other Marxists, founded the Union for the Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class. In December 1895, the leaders of the Union were arrested. Lenin was jailed for 15 months and sent into exile in Siberia for a term of three years. He was joined there in exile by his fiancée, Nadezhda Krupskaya.
After his exile, he moved to Western Europe, where he became a prominent theorist in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He began raising funds for a newspaper, Iskra (The Spark). In Switzerland he met other Russian Marxists, and they agreed to launch a newspaper from Munich, containing contributions from prominent European Marxists. The newspaper was then smuggled into Russia. Under the radar of the Bavarian police, Lenin moved to London with Iskra in April 1902.
The outbreak of the revolution in 1905 found Lenin abroad in Switzerland, and he did not return to Russia until November. Both wings of the Lenin’s party (Russian Social Democrats) (Bolshevik and Menshevik), adhered to Plekhanov’s view of the revolution in two stages: first, a bourgeois revolution; second, a proletarian revolution. But the Mensheviks argued that the bourgeoisie revolution must be led by the bourgeoisie, with whom the proletariat must ally itself in order to make the democratic revolution. This would bring the liberal bourgeoisie to power and the Lenin´s party would act as the party of opposition. Lenin rejected this kind of alliance and urged Bolsheviks to take a greater role in the events, encouraging violent insurrection. According to Lenin, the Russian revolution might well pass over directly to the second stage, the Socialist revolution. Then, the Russian proletariat, supported by the rural proletariat would establish its “dictatorship of the proletariat”.
The defeat of the Revolution and the internal infighting between the Menshevik and Bolshevik factions of the party, led to a decline of party membership. When the WW1 broke out Lenin was in Galitzia (Austro-hungarian Empire). Then, he managed to reach Switzerland, a neutral country. Socialist party throughout Europe supported their government’s war effort. Lenin was angry that the German Social-Democratic Party was supporting the German war effort, which was a direct contravention of the Second International’s resolution that socialist parties would oppose any imperialist conflict.
In February 1917, the February Revolution broke out in St. Petersburg, renamed Petrograd at the beginning of the First World War, as industrial workers went on strike over food shortages and deteriorating factory conditions. The unrest spread to other parts of Russia and Tsar Nicholas II abdicated. The State Duma took over control of the country, establishing the Russian Provisional Government and converting the Empire into a new Russian Republic. Lenin, living in Switzerland, decided to return to Russia to take charge of the Bolsheviks but found that most passages into the country were blocked due to the ongoing conflict. He then negotiated a passage for he and his comrades through Germany with the German government. The German government thinking that these revolutionaries could cause problems for their Russian enemies funded them and agreed to permit 32 Russian citizens to travel in a sealed train carriage through their territory.
Lenin arrived in Petrograd on April 16, 1917, one month after the Tsar had been forced to abdicate.
LENIN’S MUMMY.
LIEV DAVIDOVIC BRONSTEIN «TROTSKI».
IOSIF VISSARIONOVICH DZHUGASHVILI «STALIN».
STALIN AND THE COLLECTIVISATION.
HOLODOMOR.
The Holodomor ( «to kill by starvation») was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1932 and 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. During the Holodomor, millions of inhabitants of Ukraine died of starvation. Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by Ukraine and 15 other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet government. According to the findings of the Court of Appeal of Kiev in 2010, the demographic losses due to the famine amounted to 3.9 million direct famine deaths.
Between 1917 and 1921, Ukraine briefly became an independent country and fought to retain its independence before succumbing to the Red Army and being incorporated into the Soviet Union. By the end of the 1920s, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered the collectivization of agriculture. The establishment of state and collective farms in the Soviet Union was justified by its leaders as an essential part of building socialism. Soviet officials also considered them more reliable than individual farms as sources of surplus grain production, which was to fulfill compulsory state grain collection quotas. Grain collected by the state was used to feed the rapidly growing urban population, and for exports to finance purchases of machinery abroad to support the industrialization drive.
The majority of Ukrainians, who were small-scale or subsistence farmers, resisted. The state confiscated the property of the independent farmers and forced them to work on government collective farms. The more prosperous farmers (owning a few head of livestock, for example) and those who resisted collectivization were branded kulaks (rich peasants) and declared enemies of the state who deserved to be eliminated as a class. Thousands were deported to prison camps.
In 1932, the Communist Party set impossibly high quotas for the amount of grain Ukrainian villages were required to contribute to the Soviet state. When the villages were not able to meet the quotas, authorities intensified the requisition campaign, confiscating even the seed set aside for planting. Special teams were sent to search homes and even seized other foodstuffs.
STALIN PURGES AND THE GULAG.
| “It was these Siberian camps, devoted either to gold-mining or timber harvesting, that inflicted the greatest toll in the Gulag system. Such camps can only be described as extermination centers… The camp network that came to symbolize the horrors of the Gulag was centered on the Kolyma gold-fields, where outside work for prisoners was compulsory until the temperature reached −50C and the death rate among miners in the goldfields was estimated at about 30 per cent per annum.” |
“People who are imprisoned today are condemned to be incarcerated, deprived of their freedom. … They have been convicted in court, helped by defense lawyers, both sides have been given a hearing, and so on. When we talk about the Gulag, it should be understood that these are not just convicted criminals. Most of them got there by an extrajudicial decision… . And they were condemned not just to incarceration. They had to work somwhere on Kolyma or beyond the Arctic Circle in Norilsk, to work in the harshest permafrost conditions for just a ration of bread. They were habitually condemned to inhuman conditions. … So let’s not confuse imprisonment in jail for a criminal act and a person sent by an extrajudicial decision to a death-by-starvation in a camp.”
USSR WORKING CLASS.
PICTURES CENSORSHIP.
1929 CRASH AND ECONOMIC CRISIS.
1929 CRASH AND FRANKLING D. ROOSEVELT NEW DEAL.
La crisis iniciada en 1929 deja en el desempleo a millones de estadounidenses. En la primera fotografía un trabajador sostiene una pancarta en la que muestra su curriculum (trabajador en Detroit durante 7 años) y en la que pide trabajo y no caridad. En el gráfico adjunto vemos como ya en 1927 se produjeron las primeras quiebras de entidades bancarias; a la altura de 1940 sólo quedan en pie un 55% del total de oficinas bancarias estadounidenses, el 45% ha ido a la quiebra.
En ocasiones se trabaja tan sólo a cambio de un bocadillo. La crisis es tan fuerte que diariamente se forman colas ante las industrias y obras públicas en busca de un trabajo y en ocasiones la policía tiene que intervenir ante el descontento de los que no han sido seleccionados para trabajar. Un día sin trabajar es un día sin comida.
Al no haber trabajo mucha gente queda en la miseria más absoluta. Por todo Estados Unidos se habrá cientos de lugares donde se ofrece comida a todos aquellos que no tienen nada que echarse a la boca. En la fotografía observamos como se reparte café y donuts para desempleados a las puertas de una cafetería
Miles de comedores sociales se abre en todo Estados Unidos. El hambre y la miseria se llevan por delante a millones de personas.
El 24 de octubre de 1929 la bolsa de Nueva York se desploma al intuir los inversores que la situación económica es desastrosa. Las acciones de prácticamente todas las empresas se hunden. El «ticker» que registra las operaciones bursátiles incluso no puede aguantar el ritmo y se colapsa, de hecho hasta tres horas después del cierre de la Bolsa no se sabrán las cotizaciones definitivas. Para entonces ya se había corrido el rumor por todo Nueva York del desastre inminente. En la fotografía miles de personas toman los aledaños de la Bolsa de Nueva York.
La caída de las acciones se lleva los ahorros y el dinero invertido por la gente. Aquellos que se han quedado sin dinero o deben dinero a los bancos por los préstamos contraídos tienen que recurrir incluso a subastar sus bienes para contar con algo de dinero. En la fotografía una persona salda su coche por 100 dólares al haberlo perdido todo en la Bolsa.
Nuevamente en la fotografía se observa a centenares de personas deambulando frente a la Bolsa de Nueva York.
Miles de personas lo pierden todo. La miseria se extiende por todo Estados Unidos. Incluso el parque más representativo de Nueva York, Central Park, se ve invadido por miles de chabolas improvisadas donde viven aquellos que más sufren la crisis. Estos barrios de chabolas serán llamados «Hoovervilles» en honor del presidente de Estados Unidos en aquel entonces Herbert Hoover
Dorothea Lange será la gran fotógrafa que mostrará los efectos en las capas más pobres de la población de la Gran Depresión.
FASCISM AND NAZISM.
¿Era el nazismo un movimiento de izquierda o de derecha? https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-45583090
BENITO ANDREA AMILCARE MUSSOLINI
Nacido en 1883, su padre era un líder socialista local. Su nombre Benito es en homenaje de Benito Juárez, presidente reformista de México; su otro nombre Andrea es en honor de Andrea Costa, primer diputado socialista elegido para el Parlamento italiano; y Amilcar por Amilcare Cipriano, socialista que luchó junto a Garibaldi en las guerras para la unificación italiana.
A consecuencia de la influencia de su padre en 1900 se afilia al Partido Socialista Italiano. En 1902 para huir del reclutamiento obligatorio decide huir y asentarse en Suiza. En Suiza será arrestado varias veces y expulsado a consecuencia de su propagando socialista del país. (En la foto su ficha policial en la ciudad suiza de Lausana). En Suiza comenzó su carrera como periodista colaborando para distintos medios socialistas.
En 1904 vuelve a Italia una vez que es concedida una amnistía a consecuencia del nacimiento del heredero del rey Victor Manuel. Entre 1904 y 1915 prosigue su carrera dentro del Partido Socialista Italiano y su colaboración en periódicos y revistas socialistas, siendo director de la publicación socialista Avanti en Milán. Sin embargo, en 1915 rompe con el Partido Socialista, al negarse el partido a votar a favor de la entrada de Italia en la Primera Guerra Mundial. Pocos meses más tarde Mussolini funda su propio periódico, El Pueblo de Italian, de tendencia ultranacionalista.
Entre agosto de 1915 y febrero de 1917 combatió en el ejército y llegó a ser nombrado CABO, el mismo grado al que llegó Hitler. A consecuencia de unas heridas de guerra en febrero de 1917 es licenciado del ejército y volverá a su antigua profesión de articulista y director del periódico «El Pueblo de Italia», sólo que si antes de la guerra defendía con ardor el socialismo, tras la guerra su primer artículo defendía a los soldados del frente y reivindicaba para ellos el gobierno de Italia
La victoria en la I Guerra Mundial no supuso una gran alegría en Italia. A los 670.000 muertos ocasionados por el conflicto hubo que añadir otros 400.000 causados por la gripe española. Las malas cosechas se unieron a la debacle económica. La crisis agraria, sumada a la elevadísima inflación (825% en 1920 respecto a 1913), no hacía sino aumentar su descontento.
Además, Italia en abril de 1915 había negociado un pacto con Francia y Gran Bretaña por el que se comprometía a entrar a su lado en la Primera Guerra Mundial a cambio del Trentino, el Tirol del sur, la Venecia Julia, Istria, Dalmacia e islas adyacentes, así como de una “legítima compensación colonial”, que no se refería sino a una parte de las colonias alemanas en África. Sin embargo, tras la victoria, vieron con estupor que Dalmacia e Istria pasaban a formar parte del nuevo reino de Yugoslavia, y que también se les excluía del reparto colonial.
El descontento se generalizó en las sociedad italiana. Se culpaba al Estado de ineficaz y, cada vez más, aumentaba la conflictividad social alentada por la revolución bolchevique en Rusia. En este ambiente nacería el fascismo.
Benito Mussolini fundó el 23 de marzo de 1919 junto con dos seguidores, el Fascio Milanese di Combattimento, si bien solo logró reunir a unas setenta personas. El término fascio aludía a las fasces lictorias (haz de varas atadas alrededor de un hacha que llevaban ciertos oficiales romanos sobre el hombro izquierdo).
Poco después, en Milán, Mussolini creó, junto con 119 personas, los Fasci Italiani di Combattimento: lo formaban una amalgama de grupos descontentos con el estado del país (ex militares, ultranacionalistas, anarquistas, socialistas, republicanos, monárquicos, futuristas, etc). Su programa electoral incluía un exacerbado nacionalismo junto a muchas de las reivindicaciones tradicionales de la izquierda (como el sufragio universal a los 18 años, el voto femenino o la jornada laboral de ocho horas).
En menos de un año ya contaba con 56 fasci y unos 17.000 afiliados. Sus bases, los “camisas negras” actuaban con gran violencia. Solían atacar las sedes de los partidos y periódicos de izquierdas, locales sindicales y eran especialmente violentos aterrorizaban a los obreros en huelga o a los campesinos muy reivindicativos.
MARCH ON ROME. OCTOBER 1922.
El partido en abril de 1921 ya contaba con 80.746 afiliados y en noviembre de ese mismo año 217.256. El movimiento, nacido en el norte de Italia, se extendía por todo el país y en las elecciones de mayo de 1921 obtuvieron 35 escaños. Entonces, Mussolini planteó la posibilidad de tomar el poder mediante un acto de fuerza: la Marcha sobre Roma.
El fascismo decidió organizar la ocupación de Roma con sus milicias, y así forzar al rey a ofrecerles el gobierno. Se señaló el día 28 de octubre como la fecha más adecuada para llevarla a cabo. La acción, mal planificada y peor ejecutada, habría podido ser desbaratada por las tropas gubernamentales, pero faltaba la voluntad política para hacerlo. Con la neutralidad del Ejército y la simpatía de la patronal, el rey Vittorio Emanuele III ofreció el gobierno a Mussolini.
TAKING OVER POWER.
MATTEOTI’S ASSASSINATION.
El 16 de noviembre Mussolini se presenta ante el Parlamento y en una moción de confianza es elegido primer ministro. Poco después el Parlamento le confería plenos poderes en el ámbito económico y administrativo hasta finales de ese mismo año.
El 9 de junio de 1923 Mussolini presenta ante el Parlamento «la LEY ACERBO», la cual establecía que cualquier partido que lograra más de un 25% de votos en las elecciones automáticamente se le daría una mayoría de 2/3 en el Parlamento.
Las elecciones del 6 de abril de 1924, desarrolladas en un clima de violencia política de las escuadras fascistas hacia sus enemigos políticos, Mussolini y sus aliados consiguieron un 60% de los votos.
El 30 de mayo de 1924 el diputado socialista Giacomo Matteoti hizo una denuncia del fraude cometido en las elecciones y pidió la anulación del resultado. Días más tarde, el 10 de junio, el diputado Matteoti fue secuestrado por un grupo de fascistas y su cuerpo en avanzado estado de descomposición sería encontrado el 16 de agosto en un bosque cercano a Roma. Sobre su asesinato, surgen múltiples hipótesis, desde que fue el propio Mussolini el que lo ordenó hasta que sería una iniciativa propia de varios fascistas. El caso es que cuando Matteoti pronunció su discurso en el Parlamento lo finalizó con estas palabras, dirigiéndose hacia sus compañeros socialistas:
«Yo ya he hecho mi discurso. Ahora os toca a vosotros preparar el discurso fúnebre para mi entierro».
Ante el asesinato de Matteoti, la respuesta de los socialistas fue abandonar el Parlamento y retirarse a la colina del Aventino para protestar (en la antigua Roma la plebe en varias ocasiones se había retirado al Aventino para protestar contra el Senado y los patricios ricos). Algunos políticos italianos intentaron presionar al rey Victor Manuel para que procediera a la destitución de Mussolini pero ante la mayoría parlamentaria de las recientes elecciones, el rey decidió no intervenir.
En enero de 1925 ante un Parlamento sin oposición Mussolini hizo un discurso que en la práctica suponía declararse dictador y otorgarse plenos poderes:
«Declaro aquí, a esta Asamblea y al pueblo italiano, que asumo, solo yo, la responsabilidad política, moral, histórica, de todo lo sucedido. ¡Si las palabras más o menos son suficientes para colgar a un hombre, traigan el poste y la cuerda! ¡Si el fascismo ha sido solo aceite, y no una pasión arrogante de la mejor juventud italiana, es mia la culpa! ¡Si el fascismo ha sido una asociación criminal, entonces soy el jefe de esta asociación criminal! Si las violencias han sido resultado de un clima histórico, político y moral, denme a mí la responsabilidad de esos actos, porque este clima histórico, político y moral lo he creado con una gran publicidad desde sus inicios hasta hoy»
LATERAN’S ACCORDS. 1929.
Los Estados Pontificios habían sido anexionados al nuevo Reino de Italia en 1870, a consecuencia de ellos el Papa y el Vaticano estaban sometidos a la jurisdicción italiana, lo cual obviamente no agradaba al Santo Padre. En 1929 las nuevas autoridades fascistas de Italia firmaron unos Acuerdos con la Iglesia: los Pactos de Letrán.
1. Se crea el Estado Independiente del Vaticano.
2. Se regulan las relaciones entre el Estado y la Iglesia en Italia: entre otros, se declara a la religión Católica la oficial de Italia y se le conceden extraordinarios privilegios en el ámbito de la educación.
3. Se compensa económicamente a la Iglesia por los daños sufridos por la pérdida de su soberanía desde 1870.
MUSSOLINI’S FOREIGN POLICY.
En 1912 a Italia le fue reconocida su soberanía sobre Libia y temporalmente sobre las Islas del Dodecaneso. Con Mussolini ya en el poder, en la Conferencia de Lausana de 1923, Gran Bretaña apoyó las reclamaciones de soberanía italiana en vez de las griegas. En agosto de 1923 un choque entre las tropas italianas y las griegas se saldó un derrota para los italianos, pero Mussolini en una demostración de fuerza ordenó el bombardeo y la toma de la isla griega de Corfú. Mussolini demostraba así su decisión y contentaba a las masas más nacionalistas.
En 1924 Italia y el Reino de Yugoslavia llegaban a un acuerdo por el cual era reconocida la soberanía de Italia sobre la región fronteriza del Fiume.
La Guerra de Etiopía: desde fines de 1934 italianos y etíopes están enzarzados en escaramuzas fronterizas. El ejército etíope, aunque numeroso, está pobremente armado y no contaba ni siquiera con radios para comunicarse. Desde octubre de 1935 cien mil hombres del ejército italiano, sin declaración previa de guerra, invaden Etiopia. Los italianos emplearon todo su arsenal, incluyendo el lanzamiento masivo de gas mostaza y el bombardeo aéreo de civiles. Para mayo, apenas ocho meses después de iniciada la guerra, los italianos entraban en la capital de Etiopia/Abisinia, Addis Abeba. El 7 de mayo de 1935 Italia oficialmente se anexionaba Etiopia y Victor Manuel III era declarado emperador.
El emperador abisinio Haile Selassie marchó al exilio. Se dirigió a la Asamblea General de la Liga de Naciones pidiendo ayuda.
La Liga de Naciones constató su fracaso. La organización creada tras la Primera Guerra Mundial para solventar de manera pacífica los conflictos fracasó estrepitosamente. La Liga de Naciones sólo llegó a aprobar un embargo económico sobre Italia que no incluía ni alimentos de primera necesidad ni minerales o recursos estratégicos como el hierro o el petróleo.
FRIENDZONE.
DEATH.
El cuerpo de Mussolini fue enterrado en una tumba sin identificar hasta que un año después simpatizantes fascistas lo robaron para entregarlo poco después en un convento, al no saber qué hacer con los restos. Oculto durante más de 10 años en el convento de Cerro Maggiore, con el conocimiento del Gobierno italiano, en 1957 se entregó los restos a la familia, que eligió la capilla familiar de San Cassiano para darle sepultura. La tumba normalmente abre tres días al año: nacimiento, muerte y aniversario de la marcha sobre Roma. Esos días llegan a la cripta familiar de la familia Mussolini cientos de simpatizantes de todos los rincones de Italia.
HITLER AND NAZISM.
ADOLF HITLER.
Adolf Hitler was born in Branau am Inn, Austria, a village close to German-Austrian border, on April 20, 1889, and was the fourth of six children born to Alois Hitler and Klara Polzl. When Hitler was 3 years old, the family moved from Austria to Germany but the move back to Austria a few years later. As a child, Hitler clashed frequently with his father, a customs officer. His father beat him, although his mother tried to protect him. His father did not approve of his interest in Arts. Hitler was deeply affected by the death of his younger brother Edmund, who died in 1900 from measles. Hitler changed from a confident, outgoing, conscientious student to a morose, detached boy who constantly fought with his father and teachers.
A WATERCOLOUR PAINTER.
Hitler’s father died suddenly in 1903. Hitler left school at 16 with no qualifications and struggled to make a living as a painter in Vienna. He applied for Academy of Fine Arts but was rejected twice. The director of the Academy suggested Hitler should apply to the School of Architecture, but he lacked the necessary academic credentials because he had not finished secondary school. In Vienna he worked as a casual laborer and a watercolor painter.
VIENNA SECESSION.
Out of money, he moved into a homeless shelter, where he remained for several years. Hitler later pointed to these years as the time when he first cultivated his anti-Semitism but historians now generally agree that his notorious, murderous anti-Semitism emerged well after Germany’s defeat in World War I, as a product of the paranoid «stab in the back explanation».
WORLD WAR 1.
Hitler received the final part of his father’s estate in May 1913 and moved to Munich, Germany. When he was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian Army, he journeyed to Salzburg on 5 February 1914 for medical assessment. After he was deemed unfit for service, he returned to Munich.
Then, Hitler applied to the Bavarian Army and served in the German Empire army. He was accepted in August 1914, though he was still an Austrian citizen. He served as a dispatch runner on the Western Front in France and Belgium. Although he spent much of his time away from the front lines. He was decorated for bravery, receiving the Iron Cross Second Class 0n 1914 and Iron Cross First Class on August 1918. This last condecoration was based on a recommendation by Lieutenant Hugo Gutmann, Hitler’s Jewish superior.
On 15 October 1918, he was temporarily blinded in a mustard gas attack and was hospitalised. While there, Hitler learned of Germany’s defeat, and, by his own account, upon receiving this news, he suffered a second bout of blindness.
Hitler became embittered over the collapse of the war effort. The experience reinforced his passionate German patriotism, and he was shocked by Germany’s surrender in 1918. Like other German nationalists, he believed that the German army had been betrayed by civilian leaders, Jews and Marxists. He found the Treaty of Versailles degrading, particularly the demilitarization of the Rhineland and the stipulation that Germany accept responsibility for starting the war.
AFTER WORLD WAR 1.
After World War I, Hitler returned to Munich. Without formal education or career prospects, he remained in the army. The army provided him with free rations, a monthly wage of about 40 Marks and a heated place to sleep. He wanted to remain a soldier for as long as possible. Another year and a half passed before Hitler had to leave the old military.
In the spring of 1919, radical socialists proclaimed the Bavarian Soviet Republic and began forming a «Red Army» modeled after its Soviet counterpart. Most of the soldiers at Hitler’s side refused to join the revolutionary troops. Although, Hitler was elected to one of the soldiers’ councils in his regiment.
In early May 1919, after bloody fighting, German Reichswehr troops and right-wing militias occupied the Bavarian capital. Hundreds of sympathizers with the Soviet Republic were indiscriminately murdered. A wave of persecution gripped all of Munich.
Then, Hitler was now given the position of investigative commissioner in his regiment. As a former soldiers’ council member, he was very familiar with the battalion. He helped compile lists of names, and he investigated the soldiers who had allegedly been in league with the Red Army.
in July 1919 his regiment sent him to an anti-Bolshevik training course held by the «Information and Propaganda Division» of the Bavarian Army. Karl Mayr, an anti-Semite, was the head of that Division.
Now, Hitler was an openly radical right-wing nationalist propagandist, who gave talks to fellow soldiers who had returned from war captivity «contaminated with Bolshevik and Spartacist ideas.» In Munich, he handed out the propaganda division’s flyers to soldiers.
In July 1919 he was appointed intelligence agent, assigned to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate the German Workers’ Party (DAP).
FREIKORPS.
The Freikorps was the name adopted by some right wing nationalists after World War One had ended. Members of the Freikorps could be described as conservative, nationalistic, anti-Socialism/Communism and once it had been signed, anti-the Treaty of Versailles. Many members of the Freikorps had fought in World War One and had military experience. They did not believe that Germany had suffered a military defeat in World War One and members of the Freikorps were very vocal supporters of the ‘stab-in-the-back’ legend.
The Freikorps was used to put down the German Revolution of 1918-1919 and it crushed the Bavarian Soviet Republic in May 1919. A Freikorps unit in Berlin attempted to overthrow Ebert’s government (first president of the German Republic from 1919 to 1925, member of the Socialist Party).
Members of the Freikorps also murdered leading communists Karl Liebkneckt and Rosa Luxemburg. Many of the Freikorps escaped without punishment for their crimes or sentenced to only brief periods in jail.
The Freikorps officially disbanded in 1920 but many members joined the Nazi Party and became the party’s original enforcers.
HYPERINFLATION.
To pay for the large costs of the World War One, Germany suspended the gold standard (the convertibility of its currency to gold) when the war broke out. Unlike France, which imposed its first income tax to pay for the war, German Emperor Wilhelm II and the Reichstag decided unanimously to fund the war entirely by borrowing.
The government believed that it would be able to pay off the debt by winning the war, as it would be able to annex resource-rich industrial territory in the west and east and impose massive reparations on the defeated Allies.
This strategy failed as Germany lost the war, which left the new Weimar Republic saddled with massive war debts that it could not afford, a problem exacerbated by printing money without any economic resources to back it.
By late 1919 48 paper marks required to buy a US dollar. By November 1923, the US dollar was worth 4,210,500,000,000 German marks.
NSDAP.
After World War I, Hitler returned to Munich and continued to work for the military as an intelligence officer. While monitoring the activities of the German Workers’ Party (DAP), Hitler adopted many of the anti-Semitic, nationalist and anti-Marxist ideas of DAP founder Anton Drexler. Drexler invited Hitler to join the DAP, which he did in 1919. On the orders of his army superiors, Hitler applied to join the party, and within a week was accepted as party member 555 (the party began counting membership at 500 to give the impression they were a much larger party).
Around this time, Hitler made his earliest known recorded statement about the Jews in a letter dated 16 September 1919 to Adolf Gemlich about the Jewish Question. In the letter, Hitler argues that the aim of the government «must unshakably be the removal of the Jews altogether».
To increase its appeal, the DAP changed its name to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP). Hitler personally designed the party banner, featuring a swastika in a white circle on a red background. Hitler soon gained notoriety for his speeches against the Treaty of Versailles, rival politicians, Marxists and Jews.
Hitler was discharged from the army on 31 March 1920 and began working full-time for the NSDAP. The party headquarters was in Munich, a hotbed of anti-government German nationalists determined to crush Marxism and undermine the Weimar Republic. In February 1921 he spoke to a crowd of over 6,000.
In 1921, Hitler replaced Drexler as NSDAP party chairman.
BEER HALL PUTSCH.
Hitler’s beer-hall speeches began attracting regular audiences. Hitler used personal magnetism and an understanding of crowd psychology to his advantage while engaged in public speaking. Historians have noted the hypnotic effect of his rhetoric on large audiences, and of his eyes in small groups.
Early followers included army captain Ernst Rohm, the head of the Nazi paramilitary organization, the Sturmabteilung (SA), which protected meetings and frequently attacked political opponents; Rudolf Hess and former air force ace Hermann Göring.
On November 8th and 9th 1923, Hitler used the anger felt against the Berlin government in Bavaria to attempt an overthrow of the regional government in Munich in prelude to the takeover of the national government. This incident is generally known as the Beer Hall Putsch. The NSDAP used Italian Fascism as a model for their appearance and policies. Hitler wanted to emulate Benito Mussolini’s «March on Rome» of 1922 by staging his own coup in Bavaria, to be followed by a challenge to the government in Berlin.
On November 8th 1923, the Bavarian Prime Minister, Gustav Kahr, was addressing a meeting of around 3000 businessmen at a beer hall in Munich. Kahr was joined by some of the most senior men in Bavarian politics including Seisser, Bavaria’s police chief, and Lossow, the local army commander. Then, Hitler and the 600 SA stormed the public meeting. Hitler announced that the national revolution had begun and declared the formation of a new government.
Hitler’s forces initially succeeded in occupying the local Reichswehr and police headquarters, but Kahr and his cohorts quickly withdrew their support. Neither the army, nor the state police, joined forces with Hitler.The next day, Hitler and his followers marched from the beer hall to the Bavarian War Ministry to overthrow the Bavarian government, but police dispersed them. Sixteen NSDAP members and four police officers were killed in the failed coup.
The coup, known as the «Beer Hall Putsch,» failed. Hitler fled to the home of Ernst Hanfstaengl and by some accounts contemplated suicide. He was depressed but calm when arrested on 11 November 1923 for high treason.
TRIAL, IMPRISONMENT AND MY STRUGGLE.
Hitler was arrested three days later and tried for high treason. On 1 April, Hitler was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment at Landsberg Prison. There, he received friendly treatment from the guards, and was allowed mail from supporters and regular visits by party comrades. Pardoned by the Bavarian Supreme Court, he was released from jail on 20 December 1924, against the state prosecutor’s objections.
He served a year in prison, during which time he dictated most of the first volume of Mein Kampf («My Struggle«) to his deputy, Rudolf Hess. The book laid out Hitler’s plans for transforming German society into one based on race. Published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926, Mein Kampf sold 228,000 copies between 1925 and 1932. One million copies were sold in 1933, Hitler’s first year in office.
Shortly before Hitler was eligible for parole, the Bavarian government attempted to have him deported to Austria. The Austrian federal chancellor rejected the request on the specious grounds that his service in the German Army made his Austrian citizenship void. In response, Hitler formally renounced his Austrian citizenship on 7 April 1925.
ECONOMIC CRISIS
The Weimar Republic was devastated by Wall Street Crash of October 1929 and the Great Depression that followed. After 1924 American banks supported the german economy with huge loans. When the Depressión began in the US, American banks withdrew their money invested in Europe, especially in Germany.
Companies throughout Germany went bankrupt and workers were laid off. In september 1928 about 600.000 workers were unemployed in Germany; by January 1933 6 million people were unemployed.
The government failed to respond effectively to the crisis. Heinrich Bruning, who became chancellor in March 1930, feared inflation and budget deficits more than unemployment. Rather than spending to stimulate the economy and create jobs, Bruning opted to increase taxes (to reduce the budget deficit) then implemented wage cuts and spending reductions (to lower prices). Bruning’s measures failed, and probably increased German unemployment and public suffering rather than easing it.
In the 1930 Reichstag election, the Nazis gained 143 seats, a vast improvement on their previous election. Hitler only expected between 50 to 60 seats. A senior Nazi official, Gregor Strasser, claimed that what was a disaster for the Republic was «good, very good for us.»
In the July 1932 Reichstag election, the Nazis gained 230 seats making them the largest party in the Reichstag.
RISE TO POWER.
The Great Depression in Germany provided a political opportunity for Hitler. Germans were increasingly open to extremist options. In 1932, Hitler ran against Paul von Hindenburg for the presidency. Hitler came in second in both rounds of the election, obtaining more than 35 percent of the vote in the final election. The election established Hitler as a strong force in German politics. The absence of an effective government prompted two influential politicians, Franz von Papen and Alfred Hugenberg, along with several other industrialists and businessmen, to write a letter to Hindenburg. The signers urged Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as leader of a government «independent from parliamentary parties». Hindenburg reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler as chancellor in order to promote political balance.
Hitler used his position as chancellor to form a de facto legal dictatorship. On 30 January 1933, the new cabinet was sworn in during a brief ceremony in Hindenburg’s office. The NSDAP gained three posts: Hitler was named chancellor, Wilhelm Frick Minister of the Interior, and Hermann Göring Minister of the Interior for Prussia. Hitler had insisted on the ministerial positions as a way to gain control over the police in much of Germany.
May 1928 Elections: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elecciones_federales_de_Alemania_de_1928
September 1930 Elections: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elecciones_federales_de_Alemania_de_1930
July 1932 Elections: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elecciones_federales_de_Alemania_de_julio_de_1932
March 1933 Elections: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elecciones_federales_de_Alemania_de_marzo_de_1933
REICHSTAG FIRE.
As chancellor, Hitler asked Hindenburg to again dissolve the Reichstag, and elections were scheduled for early March. On 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire.
On the night of February 27th Hitler and Goebbels were having dinner at Goebbel’s Berlin home. There, Goebbels received a phone call informing him that the Reichstag building was on fire. Hitler declared that the fire was the work of the Communists and Socialists and the SA was put on alert to maintain order if and when the communist insurrection started.
The Nazis captured the alleged perpetrator of the crime, a Dutch communist. The Reichstag ceased all its activities after the fire and it could not be used. The March 5th election went ahead as planned but now in the shadow of the ‘attempted communist revolt’. Even so, the Nazis only obtained 288 seats out of 647. But Hitler had already decided that the Reichstag as a properly working entity should cease to exist and be replaced by himself.
Marinus van der Lubbe (13 January 1909 – 10 January 1934) was a Dutch Communist tried, convicted and executed for setting fire to the German Reichstag building on 27 February 1933. Van der Lubbe said that he set the Reichstag building on fire as a cry to rally the German workers against the fascist rule.
The Reichstag Fire Decree suspended basic rights and allowed detention without trial. Hitler also engineered the passage of the Enabling Act, which gave his cabinet full legislative powers for a period of four years and allowed deviations from the constitution.
Having achieved full control over the legislative and executive branches of government, Hitler and his political allies embarked on a systematic suppression of the political opposition. On July 14, 1933, Hitler’s Nazi Party was declared the only legal political party in Germany.
THE NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES.
By the summer of 1934, the SA’ had two million men. They were under the control of Ernst Röhm, a loyal follower of Hitler since the early days of the Nazi Party. The SA had given the Nazi’s an iron fist with which to disrupt other political parties meetings before January 1933. The SA was also used to enforce law after Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933. There is no evidence that Röhm was ever planning anything against Hitler.
However, Röhm had made enemies within the Nazi Party and the Army. Himmler, Goering and Goebbels were angered by the power he had gained and convinced Hitler that this was a threat to his position. Röhm wanted the SA to become the core of a new German military. With the army limited by the Treaty of Versailles to one hundred thousand soldiers, its leaders watched anxiously as membership in the SA surpassed three million men by the beginning of 1934. In January 1934, Röhm presented a memorandum demanding that the SA replace the regular army as the nation’s ground forces, and that the Reichswehr become a training adjunct to the SA.
On the night of June 29th – June 30th 1934, units of the SS arrested the leaders of the SA and other political opponents.
The Night of the Long Knives, which took place from June 30 to July 2, 1934. Ernst Röhm and other SA leaders, along with a number of Hitler’s political enemies, were arrested, shot or executed. After this date, the SS lead by Heinrich Himmler was to become far more powerful in Nazi Germany as well the Gestapo led by Reinhard Heydrich.
Juventudes Católicas.
Gustav Ritter von Kahr, the former Bavarian state commissioner who crushed the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923
KRISTALLNACHT (THE NIGHT OF THE BROKEN GLASSES)
On November 7, in Paris, a 17-year-old German Jewish refugee shot and killed the third secretary of the German embassy. He had intended to avenge the deportation of his father to Poland and the ongoing persecution of Jews in Germany by killing the German ambassador.
As revenge for this shooting, Joseph Goebbels, Nazi minister of propaganda, and Reinhard Heydrich, second in command of the SS after Heinrich Himmler, ordered «spontaneous demonstrations» of protest against the Jewish citizens of Munich. They ordered the destruction of Jewish homes and businesses. The local police were not to interfere with the rioting stormtroopers, and as many Jews as possible were to be arrested and deported to concentration camps.
In Heydrich’s report to Hermann Goering after Kristallnacht, the damage was assessed: «…815 shops destroyed, 171 houses set on fire or destroyed… 119 synagogues were set on fire, and another 76 completely destroyed… 20,000 Jews were arrested, 91 deaths were reported and those seriously injured were also numbered at 36…»
The extent of the destruction was actually greater than reported. Later estimates were that as many as 7,500 Jewish shops were looted, and there were several incidents of rape. This, in the ideology of Nazism, was worse than murder, because the racial laws forbade intercourse between Jews and gentiles. The rapists were expelled from the Nazi Party and handed over to the police for prosecution. And those who killed Jews? They «cannot be punished,» according to authorities, because they were merely following orders.
To add insult to massive injury, those Jews who survived the monstrous pogrom were forced to pay for the damage inflicted upon them. Insurance firms teetered on the verge of bankruptcy because of the claims. Hermann Goering came up with a solution: Insurance money due the victims was to be confiscated by the state, and part of the money would revert back to the insurance companies to keep them afloat.
HITLER’S FOREIGN POLICY.
German reaction to the Treaty of Versailles included:
- They were enraged by harsh terms of the treaty.
- They were not allowed to negotiate over its terms and were forced to accept it.
- They felt that the terms of the treaty were extremely unfair and humiliating.
- They felt that they should not have to accept responsibility for the war.
- Many Germans started calling for revenge to reverse the effects of the treaty.
- Many Germans attacked the new Weimar democratic government for signing it.
- Many labelled the politicians who signed the treaty “November Criminals” who had “stabbed in the back” the army, which still controlled most of Europe in 1918.
- The treaty undermined the new democratic government, led to the rise of the Nazi party and the Second World War.
The aims of Hitler’s Foreign Policy were:
- To reverse the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.
- To make Germany a great world power again.
- To unite all German speaking people.
- To rearm Germany and restore all its lost territories.
- To conquer an Empire in the East to give Germany Lebensraum (living space). The «racially inferior» Slavs would either be driven east of the Urals, enslaved, or exterminated. Besides acquiring Lebensraum, Hitler anticipated that the «drive to the East» would destroy Bolshevism.
The aims of Hitler’s Foreign Policy were based on the ideas of:
- The Aryan Race (The Nazi racist idea that Germans as an Aryan people were a “master race” destined to rule “subhuman” peoples like Slavs.)
- Pan-German Nationalism (The belief that all German speaking peoples should be united in one Greater Germany.)
- Militarism (The use of military force to solve a countries problems is better than peaceful negotiations.)
- Social Darwinism (The theory that in the world it was natural for stronger countries to conquer and rule weaker countries.)
German Rearmament:
- Hitler argues the Treaty of Versailles was unfair and every country including Germany had the right to defend itself.
- In 1933 Germany withdrew from the League of Nations and began a rapid rearmament.
- In 1935 Germany reintroduced conscription breaking the Treaty of Versailles. Germany built tanks, aeroplanes and submarines breaking the Treaty of Versailles.
- In 1936 Germany remilitarises the Rhineland in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.
- Britain, France and the League of Nations did nothing to stop German rearmament even though it was breaking of the Treaty of Versailles.
The Saar Plebiscite (1935):
- The Treaty of Versailles gave the Saar-land to the League of Nations for 15 years during which time France was to control all of its coalfields.
- In 1935 a plebiscite (vote) was held in the Saar to see if its people wanted to return to Germany in which 90% of the people voted to return to Germany.
- Hitler celebrated the plebiscite as a great victory because it was the first of Germany’s lost territories under the Treaty of Versailles to be returned to German rule.
The Remilitarisation of the Rhineland (1936):
- The Rhineland was the part of Germany bordering France that had to be demilitarised (undefended) according to the Treaty of Versailles.
- The Rhineland was demilitarised to prevent Germany from threatening or launching a surprise attack against France.
- Hitler saw how the League of Nations failed to stop the invasions of Manchuria and Abyssinia.
- Hitler saw how the League of Nations failed to stop Germany from rearming even though it was breaking the Treaty of Versailles.
- Hitler ordered German troops to enter the Rhineland to remilitarise it even though it was breaking the Treaty of Versailles.
- If France had intervened Hitler would have ordered his soldiers to withdraw from the Rhineland because Germany was not yet ready for war.
- France did not stop Hitler because refused to give its support to France if it went to war over the Rhineland.
- Britain viewed the Treaty of Versailles as too harsh and that Hitler was doing nothing wrong other than “marching into his own backyard.”
- The failure of Britain and France to stop Hitler encouraged him to continue his aggressive foreign policy to destroy the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.
Spanish Civil War.
It was during the Spanish Civil War that Mussolini and Hitler became firm allies. Hitler provided essential transport planes that enabled Franco to move his troops from Morocco to Spain in the first moments of the rebellion; thereafter, he formed the Condor Legion that notoriously bombed the Basque city of Guernica. Mussolini ultimately deployed 80,000 Italian soldiers in Spain (in contrast to just 20,000 Germans). Mussolini also initiated the creation of the ‘Rome- Berlin Axis’ to formulate a common foreign policy to deal with the threat posed by Stalin. In this agreement, Hitler also agreed that the Mediterranean should become an ‘Italian Lake’. In return Mussolini accepted that Germany should have first refusal on territory in Central and Eastern Europe
The Anschluss (union) with Austria 1938:
- The Treaty of Versailles had forbidden Germany from uniting with Austria.
- Hitler wanted to unite all German-speaking people into one Greater Germany.
- The people of Austria were a German-speaking people and Hitler himself had been born in Austria.
- The Austrian Nazi party began in 1938 to organise riots across Austria for union with Germany.
- Hitler ordered German troops to enter Austria after a request was made by a Nazi Austrian Minister in charge of the Austrian police to help restore order to the country.
- The Nazi’s then organised a plebiscite (vote) in which 99.75% of Austrians voted for union with Germany.
- Italy supported Hitler’s actions due to the Rome-Berlin Axis signed earlier that year.
- Britain, France and the League of Nations again did nothing even though Germany was clearly breaking the Treaty of Versailles.
The Sudetenland Crisis (1938):
- In 1938 a crisis erupted when Hitler demanded that Czechoslovakia hand over part of its territory called the Sudetenland to Germany.
- The Sudetenland bordered Germany and had 3 million German-speaking people living there who wanted to be part of Germany.
- Czechoslovakia had a powerful well trained and equipped army, as well as, defence agreements with France and Russia.
- The Sudetenland was the key to Czechoslovakia’s defence against attack because it was where its military fortresses and military industries were based.
- Hitler threatened war unless Czechoslovakia handed over the Sudetenland to Germany.
- The Munich Conference was organised to find a peaceful solution to the problem.
The Munich Agreement (1938):
- Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany agreed to meet in Munich to hold a conference to find a peaceful solution to the Sudetenland Crisis (Czechoslovakia was not invited).
- The British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, followed the policy of appeasement with Hitler by agreeing that the Sudetenland should become part of Germany.
- The British policy of appeasement meant giving in to Hitler’s demands to avoid war.
- In return Hitler signed the Munich Agreement with Chamberlain promising that both countries would negotiate any future problems and not go to war with each other.
- Chamberlain returned to Britain a national hero for avoiding war although he was criticised by some politicians like Winston Churchill.
Arguments in Support of Chamberlain’s Appeasement Policy include:
- The British people did not want another world war after experiencing the horrors of the First World War.
- Many British people viewed the terms of the Treaty of Versailles as too harsh and unfair to Germany.
- Many British people viewed Hitler’s demands that all German-speaking people should be allowed to live in one country as a fair and reasonable demand.
- Many British people supported Hitler because he was anti-Communist and had restored order to Germany.
- Finally the British armed forces were not ready for a world war with Germany in 1938.
Arguments Against Chamberlain’s Appeasement Policy include:
- Appeasement was wrong because Hitler was a dictator who could not be trusted to keep his word.
- Appeasement made Britain look weak and encouraged Hitler to keep demanding more and more.
- Czechoslovakia had not been invited to the Munich Conference and allowed a say in its own future.
- Hitler had made clear that he wanted to conquer an Empire in the East to give Germany Lebensraum (living space) and would only be stopped by war.
The Invasion of Czechoslovakia (1939):
- With the loss of the Sudetenland due to the Munich Agreement Czechoslovakia had lost its key military fortresses and military industries to Germany.
- The loss of the Sudetenland Germans encouraged other ethnic minority groups in Czechoslovakia like the Slovaks to demand independence.
- Riots across Czechoslovakia forced the Czech President to invite German troops to take over the rest of Czechoslovakia to restore order.
- The whole of the Czech Republic now became a part of Germany even though its people were not German and viewed by the Nazis as “subhuman”.
- The invasion of Czechoslovakia had nothing to do with reversing the Treaty of Versailles but represented the start of Hitler conquering land in the East for lebensraum.
- Hitler had now broken his promises at Munich, showed that appeasement had failed, led Britain and France to promise war if Germany now attacked Poland.
The Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939):
- On 23 August 1939 Nazi Germany and the Communist Soviet Union (Russia) signed a non-Aggression Pact in which they promised not to go to war with each other.
- The world was shocked because Hitler strongly anti-Communist viewed Russians as subhumans and wanted to conquer Russia for lebensraum (living space).
- Both Germany and Russia secretly agreed to divide Poland between them with Germany getting Western Poland and Russia getting Eastern Poland.
- Hitler signed the agreement to ensure Russia would not join Britain and France in the event of war so that Germany would not have to fight a war on two fronts.
- Stalin (the Russian leader) signed the agreement because he did not trust Britain and France, as well as, to give Russia time to prepare for an inevitable war with Germany.
The Invasion of Poland (1939):
- Germany had lost land to Poland under the Treaty of Versailles.
- Many German-speaking people lived in areas that were now part of Poland.
- Germany viewed Poles as subhuman and wanted their land for lebensraum.
- The Nazi-Soviet Pact ensured Russia would not stop Germany’s invasion of Poland.
- Hitler thought Britain and France would not keep their promise to defend Poland.
- On 1 September 1939 Hitler ordered the German army to invaded Poland.
- Britain and France declared war leading to the start of the Second World War.
MEMBERS OF THE NSDAP PARTY.
ADOLF HITLER.
ANTON DREXLER
ERNST RÖHM.
HERMANN GÖRING.
HEINRICH HIMMLER
RUDOLF HESS
JOSEPH GOEBBELS.
REINHARD HEYDRICH
ADOLF EICHMANN.
JOSEPH MENGELE
NAZI RACIAL MEASURES AND THE SS.
After president Hindenburg’s death in August 1934, Hitler became head of state as well as head of government, and was formally named as leader and chancellor. As head of state, Hitler became supreme commander of the armed forces. He began to mobilize for war. Germany withdrew from the League of Nations, and Hitler announced a massive expansion of Germany’s armed forces.
A main Nazi concept was the notion of racial hygiene. New laws banned marriage between non-Jewish and Jewish Germans, and deprived «non-Aryans» of the benefits of German citizenship. Nürnberg Laws, two race-based measures depriving Jews of rights, designed by Adolf Hitler and approved by the Nazi Party at a convention in Nürnberg on September 15, 1935. One, “Law of the Reich Citizen”, deprived Jews of German citizenship, designating them “subjects of the state.” The other, “Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour”, forbade marriage or sexual relations between Jews and “citizens of German or kindred blood.”
Hitler’s early eugenic policies targeted children with physical and developmental disabilities, and later authorized a euthanasia program for disabled adults.
The Holocaust was also conducted under the auspices of racial hygiene. Between 1939 and 1945, Nazis and their collaborators were responsible for the deaths of 11 million to 14 million people, including about 6 million Jews, representing two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe. Deaths took place in concentration and extermination camps and through mass executions. Other persecuted groups included Poles, communists, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and trade unionists, among others.
The Schutzstaffel, translated to Protection Squadron or defence corps, abbreviated SS—or with stylized «Armanen» sig runes) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP). It began at the end of 1920 as a small, permanent guard unit made up of NSDAP volunteers to provide security for Nazi Party meetings in Munich. Later, in 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed and renamed the «Schutz-Staffel». Under Himmler’s leadership (1929–45), it grew from a small paramilitary formation to one of the largest and most powerful organizations in the Third Reich. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Himmler’s command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II(1939–45). The SS, along with the Nazi Party, was declared a criminal organization by the International Military Tribunal, and banned in Germany after 1945.
The nature of the SS was based on an ideology. The SS also stressed total loyalty and obedience to orders unto death. It became a powerful tool used by Hitler and the Nazi state for political ends. A main ideology of the SS was to fight against «sub-humans»: jewish and Bolsheviks.
After 1934, the running of Germany’s concentration camps was placed under the total authority of the SS. The SS was first organized as several battalions, each based at one of Germany’s major concentration camps, the oldest of which was at Dachau. In 1939, the SS expanded into a military division, which in 1940 would become a full division within the Waffen-SS.
With the start of World War II, the SS began a large expansion that eventually would develop into three branches covering each type of concentration camp the SS operated. By 1944, there existed three divisions of the SS-TV, those being the staffs of the concentration camps proper in Germany and Austria, the labor camp system in occupied territories, and the guards and staffs of the extermination camps in Poland that were involved in the Holocaust.
OATH of the SS:
«What is your oath ?» – «I vow to you, Adolf Hitler, as Führer and chancellor of the German Reich loyalty and bravery. I vow to you and to the leaders that you set for me, absolute allegiance until death. So help me God !»
«So you believe in a God ?» – «Yes, I believe in a Lord God.»
«What do you think about a man who does not believe in a God ?» – «I think he is overbearing, megalomaniac and foolish; he is not one of us.»
HOLOCAUST AND FINAL SOLUTION.
In the Night of the Broken Glasses 91 Jews were murdered and over 20,000 men were arrested and taken to concentration camps. Afterwards the Jewish community was fined one billion Reichsmarks to pay for the damage.
After that, Jewish businesses were expropriated, private employers were urged to sack Jewish employees, and offices were set up to speed emigration. Imprisoned Jews could buy freedom if they promised to leave the country. By September 1939, half of Germany’s 500,000 Jews had fled, as had many Jews from Austria and the German-occupied parts of Czechoslovakia.
Organised killing began with the beginning of war in September 1939, but the first victims were not Jews. The Nazis set about killing people with physical and mental disabilities, whom they regarded as a burden on the state and a threat to the nation’s ‘racial hygiene’. About 170,000 people were eventually killed under this so-called Euthanasia programme.
When the Nazis occupied western Poland in 1939, two-thirds of Polish Jews, Europe’s largest Jewish community, fell into their hands. The Polish Jews were rounded up and placed in ghettos, where it is estimated that 500,000 people died of starvation and disease.
With the invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22 1941, the Nazis launched a crusade against ‘Judaeo-Bolshevism’, the supposed Jewish-Communist conspiracy. Behind the front lines, four police battalions called Einsatzgruppen (operations groups) moved from town to town in the occupied Soviet territories, rounding up Jewish men and suspected Soviet collaborators and shooting them. Using local volunteers, the Einsatzgruppen targeted Jewish women and children as well. In total, the Einsaztgruppen murdered some two million people, almost all Jews.
While these massacres were happening, the Nazis elsewhere were laying plans for an overall ‘solution to the Jewish question’. Death camp operations began in December 1941 at Semlin in Serbia and Chelmno in Poland, where people were killed by exhaust fumes in specially modified vans, which were then driven to nearby sites where the bodies were plundered and burnt. 250,000 Jews were killed this way at Chelmno and 15,000 at Semlin.
More camps opened in the spring and summer of 1942, when the Nazis began systematically clearing the ghettos in Poland and rounding up Jews in western Europe for ‘deportation to the East’. The killing of the Polish Jews was carried out in three camps: Treblinka, near Warsaw (850,000 victims); Belzec, in south-eastern Poland (650,000 victims); and Sobibor, in east-central Poland (250,000 victims). Some Jews from western Europe were sometimes taken to these camps as well, but most were killed at the biggest and most advanced of the death camps, Auschwitz.
INDUSTRIAL KILLING: AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU.
Originally a concentration camp for Polish political prisoners, Auschwitz was greatly expanded in 1941 with the addition of a much larger camp at nearby Birkenau. In all, Auschwitz-Birkenau and its sub-camps held 400,000 registered prisoners including 205,000 Jews, 137,000 Poles, 21,000 Gypsies, 12,000 Soviet soldiers and 25,000 others (including a few British soldiers).
But Auschwitz-Birkenau became more than a concentration camp. In the spring of 1942 gas chambers were built at Birkenau and mass transports of Jews began to arrive. The great majority of the Jews were gassed immediately. These gassing operations were greatly expanded in the spring of 1943 with the construction of four new gas chamber and crematorium complexes. Each crematorium could handle 2,000 victims daily. In a nearby group of barracks, nicknamed ‘Canada’ by the prisoners, victims’ belongings were sorted for transportation to the Reich. The victims’ hair was used to stuff mattresses; gold teeth were melted down and the gold deposited to an SS account.
In all about 900,000 people were gassed at Birkenau without ever being registered as prisoners, almost all of them Jews. This brought the total death toll of the Auschwitz complex to about 1.1 million, of whom one million were Jewish.
THE END OF THE HOLOCAUST.
As Allied forces began to close in on Germany in 1944, Germans began digging up and burning the bodies of those killed by the Einsatzgruppen. Prisoners remaining in Auschwitz and other concentration camps were transported or force-marched to camps within Germany. Thousands of prisoners on these death marches died of starvation, exhaustion and cold, or were shot for not keeping up the pace. Jewish prison
When British troops came across the camp on 15 April 1945, they encountered 10,000 unburied corpses, a typhus epidemic and 60,000 sick and dying prisoners into overcrowded barracks without food or water.
ODESSA.
The ODESSA, from the German Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen, meaning “Organisation of Former SS Members,” is an international Nazi network set up towards the end of World War II by a group of SS officers. The purpose of the ODESSA was to establish and facilitate secret escape routes, to allow SS members to avoid their capture and prosecution for war crimes. Most of those fleeing Germany and Austria were helped to South America and the Middle East.
Adolf Eichmann was a nazi SS (lieutenant colonel) and one of the major organisers of the Holocaust. Eichmann was charged by Reinhard Heydrich with facilitating and managing the logistics of mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in German-occupied Eastern Europe during World War II. In 1960, he was captured in Argentina by the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. Following a widely publicised trial in Israel, he was found guilty of war crimes and hanged in 1962.
JOSEF MENGELE was a SS officer and physician in Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. He was notorious for the selection of victims to be killed in the gas chambers and for performing unscientific and often deadly human experiments on prisoners. After the war, he fled to South America, where he evaded capture for the rest of his life. Mengele used Auschwitz as an opportunity to continue his anthropological studies and research on heredity, using inmates for human experimentation. The experiments were unscientific and had no regard for the health or safety of the victims. He was particularly interested in identical twins, people with heterochromia iridum (eyes of two different colours), dwarfs, and people with physical abnormalities. Witness Vera Alexander described how he sewed two Romani twins together back to back in an attempt to create conjoined twins. The children died of gangrene after several days of suffering.Assisted by a network of former SS members, Mengele sailed to Argentina in July 1949. He initially lived in and around Buenos Aires, then fled to Paraguay in 1959 and Brazil in 1960 while being sought by West Germany, Israel, and Nazi hunters such as Simon Wiesenthal so that he could be brought to trial.
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