Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich (German Reich Drittes) are the definitions with which we commonly refer to Germany in the years between 1933 and 1945 when he was under the totalitarian regime of the National Socialist German Workers Party led by Adolf Hitler.
The term Third Reich intended to connote the Nazi state as a historical successor to the medieval Holy Roman Empire (962 – 1806) and the modern German Empire (1871-1918). Nazi Germany had two official names, the Deutsches Reich (that name was in use since 1871) from 1933 to 1943, and the Großdeutsches Reich (it. Reich of Greater Germany) from 1943-1945.
January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of the Reich. Although initially he was at the head of a coalition government, he quickly broke free of the allies of the government.
At that time, the German borders were still those established in the Versailles Treaty of 1919 between Germany and the Allied Powers (Great Britain, France, United States, Kingdom of Italy, and other Japanese Empire) after the end of the First World War, Germany was limited to the north by the North Sea, Baltic Sea, and Denmark in the east was divided into two parts and bordered Lithuania, the Free City of Danzig, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, connected to the south by Austria and Switzerland, while west touched France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Rhineland and Saarland.
These borders changed after Germany regained control of the Rhineland, Saarland, and Territory of Memel and annexed Austria, the Sudetenland Bohemia, and Moravia. During the Second World War, Germany was expanded, becoming the Greater Germany, under the principles of pan-Germanism, already developed in the previous century but particularly dear to Hitler; a process of expansion began in 1938 with the ‘annexation of Austria, but it was the’ occupation of Poland that led Britain and France’s declaration of war.
During the war, Germany and the other Axis Powers Europe (Italy, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia) conquered and occupied most of Europe (with the exception of the British Isles, Switzerland, Sweden, the Iberian Peninsula, Turkey, and the European Union) and the European part of Russia. The Nazis persecuted and murdered millions of Jews and members of other ethnic minorities by putting in place the genocide known as the Holocaust, this process of ethnic cleansing was called by them with the ambiguous term “final solution” (Endlösung in German).
In addition, they persecuted or killed several members of anti-Nazi (mostly socialists and communists) by executing death sentences with Volksgerichtshof (People’s Court), as well as Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma and Sinti (this one is known as genocide Porajmos), homosexuals through the Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code and also people with mental health problems and genetic through the program Aktion T4.
Between 1943 and 1945, Germany suffered a continuing series of heavy defeats by the Allies, which stood out among the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France and Canada. This led to the occupation of German territory and to break up into four sectors of employment, later reduced to two, one pro-Western (West Germany) and one pro-Soviet (East Germany).
History
Nazi Germany grew up in a situation in which the country had spread feelings of embarrassment, anger, and resentment as a result of conditions imposed on the nation by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, which had forced the Germans defeated:•the acceptance by Germany to declare itself responsible for the outbreak of World War I.
•The permanent loss of various territories and the demilitarization of other parts of German territory
•Payment by Germany of heavy reparations both in money and in kind, justified from the point of view of the Allies, the clause of the responsibility of war.
•Unilateral disarmament of Germany as well as severe restrictions in the military
Other conditions that favored the rise of the Third Reich were nationalism and Pan-Germanism, social tensions attributed to the action of Marxist groups, the global Great Depression of the thirties (as a result of the Wall Street crash of 1929), the ‘hyperinflation, the reaction against the anti-traditionalism and liberalism of the Weimar Republic and the growth of communism in Germany, with the birth of the KPD.
Many voters, seeking an outlet for their frustrations and as an expression of their rejection of parliamentary democracy, which appeared incapable of keeping a government in power for more than a few months, began to choose political parties of the extreme right and extreme left, resting extremists just like the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP).
The Nazis promised a strong, authoritarian government in place of the republican system and civil peace (concepts which they consider to be worn), radical economic policy (including the achievement of total employment), the redemption of national pride (principally by repudiating the hated Treaty of Versailles) and the racial cleansing with the suppression of Jews and Marxists, all in the name of unity and national solidarity, in preference to the partisan divisions of democracy and the division into social classes of Marxism.
The Nazis also promised a national cultural awakening based on the tradition of the völkisch movement. They proposed rearmament, refusal to continue to pay the debts of the war, and the claim of the territories lost by the Treaty of Versailles.
The Nazi Party claimed that, with the signing of the Treaty, the liberal democracy of the Weimar Republic and the so-called “traitors November criminals” had renounced German national pride as inspired by the Jews and their accomplices, whose aim was the overthrow of the nation and the poisoning of German blood. To accept this interpretation of recent German history, Nazi propaganda effectively made use of the legend of the stab in the back (Dolchstoßlegende), explaining that way the military failure of Germany.
From 1925 and for all thirty years, the German Government continued to evolve since becoming a de jure democracy in an authoritarian state. conservator-nationalist transformation took place under the leadership of President-war hero Paul von Hindenburg, who disliked the liberal democracy of the Weimar Republic and wanted to make Germany an authoritarian state.
The natural ally for the imposition of authoritarian rule was the deutschnationale People’s Party (DNVP), or the “nationalists,” but, after 1929, with the German economy that was stent and, younger and more radical nationalists were attracted by the revolutionary nature of the National Socialist Party, as well as a challenge against the growing popular support for communism.
In addition, the political parties of the middle class lost the help of their electorate, which flowed towards the extreme wings of the German political spectrum, making it increasingly challenging to create a majority government in a parliamentary system.
In the German federal elections of 1928, when the economy had improved after the hyperinflation of the 1922-23 period, the Nazis had only 12 seats.
The Coming To Power
Only two years later, in the German Federal Elections of 1930, held a few months after the collapse of the U.S. stock market, the Nazi Party won 107 it, transforming from a small group representative party for the ninth number of MPs in the second political force in the Reichstag.
The German federal elections of July 1932 represented a watershed: the Nazis became the largest party represented in the Reichstag, winning 230 seats; President Hindenburg was reluctant to entrust the executive power to Hitler, but former chancellor Franz von Papen and Hitler formed an alliance between parties NSDAP-DNVP which would allow himself to get to Hitler’s chancellorship under the control of a traditional Conservative Party, and Hindenburg to develop an authoritarian state. Hitler had a lot of pressure to be appointed Chancellor, promising in return to Hindenburg that the Nazi party would support any government had set.
On 30 January 1933 President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany after the failure of General Kurt von Schleicher in an attempt to form a government capable of sustaining. Appointed Vice Chancellor, General von Schleicher believed he could control Hitler and the Nazis to keep the minority within the government. Hitler, both through his son Oskar von Hindenburg and through the intrigues of the former Chancellor von Papen, lobbied Hindenburg, who was the leader of the Catholic Center and whose policy was in part dictated by its anti-communism.
Although the Nazis had obtained the relative majority in the two elections of 1932 did not have a real majority, but only a slight majority in parliament through an alliance with the NSDAP-DNVP, who ruled by presidential decree under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution.
The treatment meted out to the Jews by the Nazis in the early months of 1933 represented the first step of the process of elimination by the German company. This project was one of the pillars of the “cultural revolution” designed by Adolf Hitler.
Consolidation of power
The new government quickly established a totalitarian dictatorship in Germany, establishing a central government with legislative alignment, a process called Gleichschaltung. On the night of 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building went up in flames while inside it was found councilor Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe; the man was arrested and charged with arson, tried, and then decapitated.
These facts caused the immediate reaction of thousands of anarchists, socialists and communists throughout the country; defined their speeches and rallies as an ‘uprising, the Nazis imprisoned many in the Dachau concentration camp. The public feared that the fire was a signal for the start of a communist revolution in Germany, like that of 1919, so the Nazis exploited it by issuing the Reichstag Fire Decree (27 February 1933), which repealed the majority of civil liberties, including the writ of habeas corpus, in order to eliminate their political opponents.
In March 1933, with the Enabling Act, passed by Parliament with 444 in favor and 94 against (the social democratic left), the Reichstag conferred dictatorial powers by decree the Chancellor Adolf Hitler for four years would have had absolute political power authorizing him not to respect more the principles of the Weimar Constitution and from that moment, all the 1934 Nazi party devoted himself to the brutal elimination of political opposition, the Enabling Act already had banned the Communists (KPD) and the Social Democrats (SPD) were excluded in June, even though they had agreed to Hitler’s demands.
In the period from June to July, nationalists (DVNP), the People’s Party (DVP), and the German State Party (DSTP) were forced to disband in various ways. Later, under pressure from Franz von Papen, the remaining Catholic Centre was also loose on 5 July 1933 after obtaining Nazi guarantees for the Catholic education system and youth groups. On 14 July 1933, Germany was officially declared a one-party country.
Established the Third Reich, the Nazi regime abolished the symbols of the Weimar Republic, including the tricolor flag black-red-gold, adopting a symbolism that refers to both the old and the new empire, representing the dual nature of the German empire.
The tricolor imperial black-white-red, which mostly fell into disuse during the Weimar Republic, was restored as one of the two official national flags of Germany, and the second was the swastika flag of the Nazi party, which later became the national flag German in 1935. The national anthem remained Das Lied der Deutschen (also known as Deutschland über Alles). Still, the Nazis changed the text while retaining only the first stanza, which was followed by the Horst-Wessel-Lied accompanied by the Nazi salute.
On 30 January 1934, the President of the Reich, Chancellor Hitler, formally concentrated executive power over himself with the Gesetz über den Neuaufbau des Reichs (it. Decree for the reconstruction of the Reich) by disbanding Länder parliaments and transferring the management of legislation and administration to the central government in Berlin. The process of centralization began soon after March 1933 with the promulgation of the Enabling Act, when the regional governments were replaced by Reichsstatthalter (Reich governors).
Local authorities were removed, and the Reich governors were appointed directly by the mayors of cities and towns with a population of fewer than 100,000 inhabitants. In contrast, the Ministry of the Interior instead appointed the mayors of cities with people greater, in regard to the cities of Berlin, Hamburg, and Vienna (after the Anschluss of 1938) Hitler had appointed the mayors at their discretion.
By the spring of 1934, only the Reichswehr (German armed forces) remained independent from the government; it was traditionally considered a political entity in its own right, separate from the national government. The Nazi paramilitary Sturmabteilung (SA) was expected to be able to take command of the German army. Still, the Reichswehr opposed the ambition of the SA leader Ernst Röhm to annex the same to the SA Army.
In addition, Röhm intended to launch a “socialist revolution” to complement the “nationalist revolution” carried out with the rise to power of Hitler. Röhm and the SA leaders wanted the regime to put in place its promise of enacting socialist legislation for Aryan German ancestry.
Since his power, without control of the Reichswehr, was absolute only on paper and wanting to maintain good relations with it and with certain politicians and industrialists (dried by political violence of the SA), Hitler ordered the Schutzstaffel (SS) and the Gestapo to assassinate his political opponents both outside and inside the Nazi party during the night of the long knives. The elimination of Ernst Röhm, his SA, the strasseristi, the left faction of the Nazis, and other political enemies lasted from 30 June to 2 July 1934.
Immediately after the death of Paul von Hindenburg on 2 August 1934, the Nazi-controlled Reichstag strengthened the powers of the President and the Registrar and renamed Hitler Führer and Reich Chancellor. Until the death of Hindenburg, the Reichswehr did not follow Hitler, partly because of the association of the SA, which included many millions of men; it was a bigger Army (limited to 100,000 effective by the Treaty of Versailles), but also because the leaders of the SA first proposed to incorporate the army in SA and then launch the nazi-socialist revolution.
The murder of Ernst Röhm and other SA leaders placed the Reichswehr in the position of being the only armed force in Germany, and the Führer’s promises about the expansion of the empire granted him his allegiance. The death of Hindenburg facilitated the change in the oath of commitment of the Germans from sodati loyalty to the Reich and the Weimar Republic to one of loyalty to Adolf Hitler, the Führer of Germany.
The result was that the Nazis enacted the end of the alliance government official NSDAP-DNVP and began to impose the ‘ideology and Nazi symbolism into all aspects of public and private life in Germany; the textbooks were revised or rewritten entirely to promote the Pan-German racist vision of Großdeutschland (It. Greater Germany) which was to be founded by ‘Herrenvolk Nazi teachers who opposed the new curricula nazificati were dismissed.
In addition, to force obedience of the people to the state, the Nazis established the Gestapo, a secret state police independent of the civil authorities. The Gestapo put the German people thanks to 100,000 spies and informers, who reported anyone who showed critical positions or anti-Nazi.
Contenta of the prosperity brought by the Nazis, most of the Germans remained silently obedient, while political opponents, especially the Communists, Marxists, and members of the ‘Socialist International, were imprisoned; between 1933 and 1945, more than three million Germans were interned in camps concentration or in prison for political reasons. Tens of thousands were killed. Between 1933 and 1945, the Sondergerichte (special courts) 12,000 Germans sentenced to death, the court martial sentenced them to death 25,000 and 40,000 ordinary justice.