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HI136 The History of Germany
Week 11
Aligning the State (Gleichschaltung)
and Redefining Citizenship
Gleichschaltung
• April 1933: Laws passed enabling Nazi-dominated State
governments to pass legislation without the approval of provincial
parliaments.
• 2 May 1933: Leading Trade Unionists arrested & workers’
organizations merged to form the Deutscher Arbeitsfront (German
Labour Front, DAF).
• 22 June 1933: The SPD officially banned.
• June-July 1933: Other political parties dissolved themselves.
• 14 July 1933: The Nazi Party proclaimed the only legal political party
in Germany.
• Jan. 1934: State parliaments abolished & local government
subordinated to the federal Minister of the Interior.
Nazi Book Burning May ’33
http://cache-media.britannica.com.cdnetworks.net/eb-media/41/67841-004-21BD0894.jpg
Citizenship
• Purity of the Race
• Devotion to the Nation
Revolutionary Phase
March 1933: First concentration camp opened in
Dachau near Munich
First victims: Communists and Social Democrats
Then, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, German
Jews, physically and mentally handicapped, and
Afro-Germans
July 1933: Law for Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased
Offspring
1933: Mob attacks against Jews and Jewish businesses
7 April 1933: Law for the Restitution of the Professional
Civil Service
October 1933: Germany leaves League of Nations
Eugenics
• Eugenics = ‘good birth’;
widespread in western
societies from late 19thC
(i.e. not German-specific)
• ‘Ideal’ racial stock often
equated to middle-class
• ‘Dangerous’ classes of
lumpenproletariat
• Note cultural stereotypes
rather than scientific
criteria
• Law for Prevention of
Hereditarily Diseased
Offspring (July 1933):
‘Inferior Hereditary Material Penetrates a Village’: lone mother, approx. 2 million people
illegitimate children, drinking fathers, mental illness & prison
sterilized
Pronatalism
• NS settlement schemes
demanded a high birth rate
• Depression discouraged
large families; cf pre-1914
statistics disappointing
• Positive eugenics:
incentive schemes such as
marriage loans, mothers’
crosses
• Lebensborn (Well of Life):
SS scheme to promote
Aryan births out of wedlock
• Anti-natalism (Gisela
Bock): several hundred
thousand women sterilised
Above: Mother’s Cross; below: ‘The
nation’s military strength is safeguarded by
hereditarily healthy, child-rich families’
‘Asocials’
• Racial theory of
hereditary illnesses
(criminality,
alcoholism),
rendering sufferers
‘unfit for community’
• ‘Workshy’ &
prostitutes targeted
from 1936 on,
becoming significant
proportion of
‘This is how it would end.’
concentration camp
population
Euthanasia
• Financial savings on
mentally handicapped
• Killings in sanatoria
• ‘T4’ programme under
Viktor Brack experiments
with gas vans
• Bishop Galen of Münster
Victor Brack, leads Catholic opposition
Bishop Galen of
architect of the ‘T4’ Muenster,
(euthanasia becomes
euthanasia outspoken critic clandestine from 1941)
programme of euthanasia • Key text: Michael Burleigh,
Death and Deliverance
Roma and Sinti gypsies
• Sinti & Roma
labelled workshy
• Ethnographic studies
of gypsies as Indo-
European migrants
• Proportionally as
many gypsies died in
Gypsies await their fate at Belzec camp Holocaust as Jews
Homosexuals
• Especially male
homosexuals targeted
as failing their
reproductive duties
• 1936 para. 175 of
Penal Code outlaws
homosexuality
• Homosexuals
incarcerated in
NS chart alleging that one concentration camps
homosexual man can ‘contaminate’
28 others; note the pseudo-scientific with pink triangle
diagram
Antisemitism
• Religious antisemitism, dating back to
medieval period
• Economic antisemitism: emancipation of
Jewish Germans post-1871 coincided
with economic depression
• Biological antisemitism: Social
Darwinism; organicist view of body
politic; Jews as parasites
‘contaminating’ Aryan blood
The Jewish ‘World Conspiracy’
Jewish ‘capitalist oppressor’ ‘Bolshevism is Jewry’ Jewish ‘bolshevik
commissar’ (PoW
photo, 1941)
Assimilation Rejected
1933 April Boycott of Jewish Businesses
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/boycott1933.html http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/boycott.htm
Nuremberg Race Laws
Routinisation
1934--End of Revolutionary Phase:
• October: Night of Long Knives
• 19 Aug 1934: Merger of Presidency &
Chancellor
• 24 October 1934: German Labour
Front founded
The Night of the Long Knives,
30 June 1934
• Pressure from the party rank-and-
file (and particularly from within
the SA) for a ‘second revolution’.
• Fears that the radicalism of the SA
would bring about a military coup
against the Nazis.
• This led to a purge of the party on
30 June 1934 – the SS carried out
raids against targets across
Germany. Critics of the regime
such as Vice-Chancellor Papen
were arrested, while old enemies
such as Gregor Strasser & Gustav
Ritter von Kahr were summarily
executed. Over 1000 people were
arrested & at least 85 killed.
Ernst Röhm (1887-1934)
Economic Policy
John Heartfield (1891 – 1968), Adolf the Superman:
Swallows Gold and Spouts Junk, 1932 Der Sinn des Hitlergrusses: Kleiner Mann bittet um grosse Gaben.
Motto: Millonen Stehen Hinter Mir! [The Meaning of the Hitler Salute:
Little man asks for big gifts. Motto: Millions Stand Behind Me!], The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1932
Economic Policy
• Different approaches to economic management
considered:
– Anti-capitalist clauses of the 25-point programme:
nationalisation, profit sharing, expansion of welfare state.
– Deficit financing
– Wehrwirtschaft (defence economy)
• Three key stages:
– 1933-37: economic revival under Hjalmar Schacht
– 1936-39: preparation for war
– 1939-45: wartime economy
Economic Revival, 1933-36
• Respected financier Hjalmar
Schacht appointed President
of the Reichsbank (1933-39) &
Minister of Economics (1934-
37) – demonstrates the Nazis
need to keep big business on
side.
• Schacht given virtual dictatorial
powers over the economy.
Hjalmar Schacht (1877-1970)
Public Works
Source: G. Layton, Democracy and Dictatorship in Germany (2009)
Public Works
Reichsautobahnen
Year km total
• 1935 108 108
• 1936 979 1087
• 1937 923 2010
• 1938 1036 3046
• 1939 255 3301
• 1940 436 3737
• 1941 90 3827
• 1942 34 3861
• 1943 35 3896
Total: 3896
Economic Revival, 1933-36
Sept. 1934:
‘New Plan’ introduces
state control of trade &
currency exchange.
Bilateral trade
agreements with South
America and the
Balkans.
‘The Fight Against Unemployment’: Graph Presented by
the Reich Ministry of Employment (1934)
The Four Year Plan
• A looming balance of payments crisis by 1936 – Schacht’s
solution to reduce expenditure in re-armament & focus on
production of manufactured goods for export.
• However, in August 1936 Hitler issued a memorandum calling
for the German economy to be ready for war within four years.
• This led to the introduction of the Four Year Plan under
Hermann Göring – the aim was to make Germany self-sufficient
in food and raw materials.
• Tighter control of economy and workforce.
• Success of the plan was mixed, but generally it fell short of its
targets.
Labour
• The state-run trade union, the
Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF),
was the largest Nazi
organization with a membership
of 22 million by 1939.
• It was responsible for setting
wages and working hours,
organizing training, dealing with
strikes and absenteeism and
supervising working conditions.
• Kraft durch Freunde (KdF,
Strength through Joy) provided
opportunities for loyal workers
to go on cheap holidays,
participate in cultural visits or
access sporting facilities.
Winners and Losers
• Difficult to assess
• Job creation
• Low Real Wages for Industrial Workers w/ some new
compensations (Eigensinn-Alf Lüdtke)
• Minor gains for small businessmen and farmers
• Heavy Industry!!
German Foreign Policy,
1933-1937
Oct. 1933 Germany leaves League of Nations and Disarmament Conference
Jan. 1934 Non-Aggression Pact with Poland
Jan. 1935 The Saar votes to return to Germany
March. 1935 Hitler announces reintroduction of conscription
April 1935 Stresa conference, Britain, France, and Italy protest against
German infringement of Versailles
June 1935 Anglo-German Naval Agreement on an enlarged German Navy
Oct. 1935 Italy invades Abyssinia
January 1936 Mussolini ends Italian guarantee of Austrian independence
March 1936 German troops reoccupy the demilitarised Rhineland
July 1936 Germany sends military to help the nationalist rebels in Spain
Nov. 1936 Rome – Berlin Axis announced; Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan
Nov. 1937 Italy joins Anti-Comintern Pact
German Foreign Policy,
1938-1939
March Invasion of Austria
1938 (Anschluss)
Sept. Munich conference of
1938 Germany, Italy, France,
Britain
Oct. 1938 Germany takes
Sudetenland, Teschen to
Poland
March Germany occupies
1939 Czechoslovakia
March Germany occupies
1939 Memel
March Britain and France
1939 guarantee Poland
One woman’s reaction to the German
entry into the Sudetenland, Sept. 1938.
The Nazi-Soviet Pact,
23 August 1939
• Article I. Both High Contracting Parties obligate
themselves to desist from any act of violence, any
aggressive action, and any attack on each other, either
individually or jointly with other Powers.
• Article II. Should one of the High Contracting Parties
become the object of belligerent action by a third Power,
the other High Contracting Party shall in no manner lend
its support to this third Power.
Secret Additional Protocol:
• Article I. In the event of a territorial and political
rearrangement in the areas belonging to the Baltic
States (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the northern
boundary of Lithuania shall represent the boundary of
the spheres of influence of Germany and U.S.S.R. In this
connection the interest of Lithuania in the Vilna area is
recognized by each party.
• Article II. In the event of a territorial and political
rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish
state, the spheres of influence of Germany and the
U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of
the rivers Narev, Vistula and San.
The question of whether the interests of both parties
make desirable the maintenance of an independent
Polish States and how such a state should be bounded
can only be definitely determined in the course of further
political developments.
In any event both Governments will resolve this question
by means of a friendly agreement.
• Article III. With regard to Southeastern Europe attention
is called by the Soviet side to its interest in Bessarabia.
The German side declares its complete political
disinterestedness in these areas.
“Rendezvous”, by David Low, The Evening • Article IV. This protocol shall be treated by both parties
as strictly secret.
Standard, 20 September 1939
