Hitler was to report the activities of the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei DAP, German Workers’ Party, and he soon found that the party ideals of extreme nationalism and anti-Semitism were in li
Trang 1authoritarianism He had also developed a deep hatred
of left-wing politics, and it was no coincidence that his
anti-Semitism developed along with his political beliefs,
as many of the advocates of socialism and communism
were Jews
The army employed Hitler as a political offi cer,
and he freely gave vent to his feelings in the charged
atmosphere following the humiliating Versailles
Trea-ty of June 28, 1919 The treaTrea-ty signed by the German
politicians was a peace dictated by others, and German
humiliation was complete Hitler was to report the
activities of the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP, German
Workers’ Party), and he soon found that the party ideals
of extreme nationalism and anti-Semitism were in line
with his own beliefs With his excellent skill of
deliv-ery, Hitler impressed the members and joined the DAP
Thus, the political career of Hitler began in September
1919 He was soon placed in charge of propaganda and
recruited fellow soldiers from the army who had also
been disillusioned with the Treaty of Versailles
NAZI PARTY
All the blame for Germany’s woes was put on the Jews,
communists, and ineffi cient political leadership of the
Weimar Republic Hitler made the symbol of the party
the swastika (symbolizing victory for the Aryan race)
with a red background (symbolizing the social idea)
and enclosed in a white circle (symbolizing the
nation-al idea) Hitler changed the name of the DAP to the
National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP,
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), Nazi
for short As chairperson of the party, Hitler was
addressed as the führer (leader)
The Weimar Republic received a severe blow in
January 1923, when France and Belgium occupied the
Ruhr industrial area and brought the German
econo-my to a standstill Hitler tried to exploit the situation
with the Beer Hall Putsch of November in Bavaria, but
the coup failed and the führer was imprisoned
Dur-ing his period of incarceration, he wrote Mein Kampf
(My struggle) The memoir-cum-doctrinal Nazi guide
book spelled out an agenda for an expanded Germany
inhabited by a pure Aryan race and excluding Jews and
other unwanted people
Hitler was biding his time and realized that he could
attain power through the ballot box The collapse of
the New York Stock Market on October 23, 1929, and
the consequent worldwide Great Depression affected
the German economy The unemployment fi gure rose
from 1.30 million to nearly 4 million by the end of
1930 Hitler exploited the deteriorating economic
situ-ation He had assured the top industrialists, by issuing
a pamphlet entitled The Road to Resurgence, that the
Nazi Party was not against the wealthy His promise of suppression of trade unionism and building up of the army was music to the ears of big industrialists His technique of propaganda and rabble-rousing speeches appealed to the workers The political elite began to accept him because of his emphasis on legality In the
1932 elections Hitler’s party was the strongest in Ger-many, with 40 percent of the votes The Reich presi-dent, Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934), was per-suaded by conservative leaders and Nazi supporters to appoint Hitler chancellor in January 1933
Nazi political opponents were subdued by mass demonstrations in favor of Hitler and terrorized by the brown-shirted SA, the Sturmabteilung (storm troopers),
and the black-uniformed ss, the Schutzstaffel
(secu-rity echelon) In March an act that granted dictato-rial power to Hitler was passed After four months all political parties were banned save the Nazi Party, and the common form of greeting became “Heil Hitler” with an outstretched right arm A ministry
of propaganda was instituted under Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) On June 30, 1934, Hitler carried out a purge in the Nazi Party by murdering his opponents
in the “night of the long knives.” With the death of Hindenburg in August, Hitler, with the title of führer, was the supreme leader of Germany The legal system was virtually nonexistent, and the Geheime Staatspo-lizei (the Gestapo, the secret state police), formed by Hermann Göring (1893–1946), threw the anti-Nazis into concentration camps A rearmament and public housing program were initiated
The economy revived, and the unemployment fi gures went down Germany became 83 percent self-suffi cient
in agriculture by fi xing farm prices and wages, banning the sale of farms of less than 312 acres, and reclaiming uncultivated lands Industrial recovery was achieved by the Four-Year Plans of 1933 and 1936 The ministry
of economics distributed raw materials and regulated prices, imports, and exports Hitler’s popularity soared, while Germany had been transformed into an authori-tarian state
Hitler struck against the Jews, which culminated in the Nazis’ sending them into gas chambers and concen-tration camps during World War II The Nuremberg laws of September 1935 denied the Jews citizenship and the right to marry non-Jews Hitler’s policies led
to large-scale Jewish migration to different parts of the world The November 1938 pogrom against the Jews resulted in massacre, looting of property, the forcing of
Hitler, Adolf 149