CBSE Class 9 Social Science Nazism And The Rise Of Hitler Notes

NAZISM AND THE RISE OF HITLER

In the First World War which continued for nearly four long years, Germany suffered defeat. Germany was forced to sign the treaty of Versailles and Germany became a Republic. Hitler stirred up the emotions of the Germans by condemning the treaty of Versailles. Hitler becomes the Chancellor of Germany in 1933 and President in 1934. He cancelled the civil liberties, abolished the frees and radio and controlled all educational institutions. He tortured and executed millions of Jews in Germany. Hitless was determined to make Germany a might power and conquer all of Europe. With surprising rapidity Germany rose from ashes. German forces attacked Poland on 1 September 1939. Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September in order to protect Poland. World War II began in September 1993. Germany was defeated in this war. Hitler committed suicide and Germany surrendered to the Allies in May 1945. 

BIRTH OF THE WEIMER REPUBLIC

The defeat of imperial Germany and the abdication of the emperor gave an opportunity to parliamentary parties to recast German polity. a national Assembly met at Weimer and established a democratic constitution with a federal structure. Deputies were now elected to the German Parliament or Reichstag. On the basis of equal and universal votes cast by all adults including woman. This republic, however, was not received well by its own people largely because of the terms it was forced to accept after Germany’s defeat at the end of the First World War. 

(a) Treaty of Versailles:

Germany signed a peace treaty with the Allies at Versailles according to which -
(i) Germany lost its overseas colonies, a tenth of its population, 13 percent of its territories, 75  present of its iron and 26 percent of its coal to France, Poland, Denmark and Lithuania.
(ii) The Allied Powers demilitarized Germany to w taken its power.
(iii) The War Guilt clause held Germany responsible for the war damages the Allied countries  suffered. Germany was forced to pay compensation amounting to 6 billion pound.
(iv) The Allied armies also occupied the occupied the resource-rich Rhineland for much of the 1920s. 

(b)   The Effects of the War:
The war had a devastating impact on the entire continent both psychologically and financially. From a continent of creditors, Europe turned into one of debtors. The Weimer republic carried the burden of war guilt and national humiliation and was financially crippled by being forced to pay compensation.
The First World War left a deep imprint on European society and polity. Soldiers came to be placed above civilians. Politicians and publicists laid great stress on the need for men to be aggressive, strong and masculine. However soldiers lived miserable lives in trenches, trapped with rate feeding on corpses. They faced poisonous gas and enemy shelling, and witnessed their ranks reduce rapidly. Democracy was indeed a young and fragile idea, which could not survive the instabilities of inte4rwar Europe. 

(c) Political Radicalism and Economic Crises:
(i) Soviets of workers and sailors were established in many cities. The political atmosphere in Berlin was charge with demands for Soviet-style conveyance. Those opposed to this-such as the socialists, Democrats and Catholics – met in Weimar to give shape to the democratic republic. The Weimar Republic crushed the uprising with the help of a war veteran’s organization called Free Crops.
The anguished Spartacists later founded the Communist Party of Germany. Communists and Socialists henceforth became irreconcilable enemies and could not make common cause against Hitler. Both revolutionaries and militant nationalists craved for radical solutions.(ii) Germany had fought the war largely on loans and had to pay reparations in Gold. In 1923 Germany refused to pay, and the French occupied its leading industrial area, Ruhr, to claim their coal. Germany retaliated with passive resistance and printed paper currency recklessly. With too much printed money in circulation, the value of the German mark fell. As the value of the mark collapsed, prices of goods soared. This crisis came to be known as hyperinflation, a situation when prices rise phenomenally high. 

(d) The years of depression:

German investments and industrial recovery were totally dependent on short tern loans, largely from the USA. On one singly day, 24 October, 13 million shares were sold in Wall Street Exchange. This was the start the Great Economic Depression. The German economy was the worst hit by the economic crisis. Workers lost their jobs or were paid reduced wages. As jobs disappeared, the youth took to criminal activities and total despair became a commonplace. The economic crisis created deep anxieties and fears in people. The currency lost its value. Sections of society were filled with the fear of proletarianisation, an anxiety of being reduced to the ranks of the working class, or worse still, the unemployed. The large mass of peasantry was affected by a sharp fall in agricultural prices and women, unable to fill their children’s stomachs, were filled with a sense of deep despair. Politically too the Weimer Republic was fragile. The Weimer constitution had some inherent defects, which made it unstable and vulnerable to dictatorship. Proportional representation and Article 48 were its major shortcomings. People lost confidence in the democratic parliamentary system, which seemed to offer no solutions.

HITLER’S RISE TO POWER

(i) Born in Austria in 1889, Hitler spent his youth in poverty. During the First World War, he enrolled in the German army, acted as a messenger at the front, became a corporal and earned medals for bravery.

(ii) In 1919, he joined a small group called the German Workers Party; subsequently took control of this party, renamed it as the National Socialist German Workers Party. This party came to be known as the Nazi Party. In 1923, Hitler planned to seize control of Bavaria, march to Berlin and capture power. He failed, was arrested and tried for treason, and later released. The Nazis could not effectively mobilize popular support till the early 1930s. It was during the Great Depression that Nazism became a mass movement. In 1928, the Nazi Party got no more then 2.6 percent votes in the Reichstag – the German parliament. By 1932, the Nazi Party had become the largest party with 37 percent votes.

(iii)  Hitler was a powerful speaker. His passion and his words moved people. He promised them a strong nation, employment, secure future for the youth and to restore the dignity of the German people. He devised a new style of politics. Nazis held massive rallies and public meetings to demonstrate the support for Hitler and instill a sense of unity among the people.

(iv) Nazi propaganda skillfully projected Hitler as a messiah, a saviour, as someone who had arrived to deliver people from their distress. it is an image that captured the imagination of a people whose sense of dignity and pride had been shattered, and who were living in a time of act economic and political crises.

(a) The Destruction of Democracy:

On 30 January 1933, President Hindenburg offered the chancellorship, the highest position in the cabinet of ministers, to Hitler. A mysterious first that broke out in the German Parliament building in February facilitated his move to dismantle the structures of democratic rule. The Fire Decree of February 1933 indefinitely suspended civic rights like freedom of speech, press and assembly that had been guaranteed by the Weimer constitution. The Communists were hurriedly packed off to the newly established concentration camps. On 3 marches 1933, the famous Enabling Act was passed, which established dictatorship in Germany. It gave Hitler all powers to sideline Parliament and rule by decree. All political parties and trade union were banned except for the Nazi Party and its affiliates. special surveillance and security forces like, Gestapo (secret state police), the SS (the sotection squads), criminal police and the Security Service (SD) were created to control and order society in ways that the Nazis wanted. The police forces acquired powers to rule with impunity.

(b)  Reconstruction:

(i) Hitler assigned the responsibility of economist Hjalmar Schacht who aimed at full production and full employment through a state-funded work-creation programme.

(ii) In foreign policy also Hitler acquired quick successes. He pulled out of the League of Nations in 1933, reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936, and integrated Austria and Germany in 1938 under the slogan, one people, One empire, and One leader. He then went on to wrest German-speaking Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, and gobbled, and gobbled up the entire country.

(iii) Hitler chose war as the way out of the approaching economic crisis. In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. This started a war with France and England. In September 1940, a Tripartite Pact was signed between Germany, Italy and Japan, strengthening Hitler’s claim to international power. By the end of 1940, Hitler was at the pinnacle of his power.

(iv) Hitler wanted to ensure food supplies and living space for Germans. He attacked the Sovie Union in June 1914. The Soviet Red Army inflicted a crushing and humiliating defeat on Germany at Stalingrad. When Japan extended its support to Hitler and bombed the US base at Pearl Harbor, the US entered the Second World War. The war ended in may 1945 with Hitler’s defeat and the US dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima in Japan.

THE NAZI WORLDVIEW

Nazi ideology was synonymous with Hitler’s worldview. According to this there was no equality between people, but only a racial hierarchy. Hitler’s racism borrowed from thinkers like Canes Darwin and Herbert Spencer. Darwin explained the creation of plants and animals through the concept of evolution and natural selection. Herbert Spencer later added the idea of survival of the fittest. The Nazi argument was simple: the strongest race would survive and the weak ones would perish. The Aryan race was the finest. It had to retain its purity, become stronger and dominate the world. The Hitler‘s ideology related to the geopolitical concept of Lebensraum, or living space. He believed that new territories had to be acquired for settlement. Hitler intended to extend German boundaries by moving eastwards, to concentrate all Germans geographically in one place. Poland became the laboratory for this experimentation.

(A) Establishment of the Racial State:

Nazis wanted only a society of pure and healthy Nordic Aryans’. They alone were considered ‘desirable’. Only they were seen as worthy of prospering and multiplying against all others who were classed as ‘undesirable’. Under the Euthanasia Programme, Nazi officials had condemned to death many Germans who were considered mentally or physically unfit. Jews were not the only community classified as ‘undesirable’. Many Gypsies and blacks living in Nazi Germany were considered as racial ‘inferiors; Russians and Poles were considered subhuman, and hence undeserving of any humanity. Nazi hatred of Jews had a precursor in the traditional Christian hostility towards Jews. They had been stereotyped as killers of Christ and usurers (moneylenders charging excessive interest). Hitler’s hatred of Jews was based on pseudoscientific theories of race, which held that conversion was no solution to ‘the Jewish problem’. It could be solved only thought their total elimination.

(b) The Racial Utopia:

Occupied Poland was divided up. Poles were forced to leaves their homes and properties behind to be occupied by ethnic Germans brought in from occupied Europe. Poles were herded like cattle in the other part called the General Government, the destination of all ‘undesirables’ of the empire. Polish children who looked like Aryans were forcibly snatched and examined by ‘race experts’. If they passed the race tests they were raised in German families and if not, they were deposited in orphanages where most perished. With some of the largest ghettos and gas chambers, the General Government also served as the killing fields for the Jews.

YOUTH IN NAZI CERMANY

(i) Hitler was fanatically interested in the youth of the country. The schools under Nazism were ‘cleansed’ and ‘purified’. Teachers who were Jews or seen as ‘politically unreliable ‘were dismissed. Germans and Jews could not sit together or play together. ‘Unreliable children ‘- Jews the physically handicapped. Gypsies – were thrown out of schools. And finally in the 1940’s they were taken to the gas chambers.

(ii) ‘Good German’ children were subjected to a process of Nazi Schooling. School textbooks were rewritten. Racial science was introduced to justify Nazi ideas of race. Children were taught to be loyal and submissive, hate Jews, and worship Hitler. Hitler belived that boxing could make children iron hearted, strong and masculine.

(iii) Youth organizations were made responsible for educating German youth in ‘the spirit of National socialism’. Ten-year-olds had to enter Jungvolk. At 14, all boys had to join the Nazi youth   organizations Hitler youth. After a period of rigorous ideological and physical training they joined the Labor services, usually at the age of 18. Then they had to serve in the armed forces and enter one of the Nazi organizations.

(iv) The youth League of the Nazis was founded in 1922. four years later it was renamed Hitler youth. All other youth organizations were systematically dissolved and finally banned.

(a) The Nazi Cult of Motherhood:

(i) Children in Nazi Germany were repeatedly told that women were radically different from men. The fight equal rights for men and women was wrong and it would destroy society. girls were told that they had to become good mothers and rear pure-blooded Aryan children . Girls had to maintain the purity of the race, distance themselves from Jews, look after the home, and teach their children Nazi values. they had to be the bearers of the Aryan culture and race.

(ii) women who bore racially undesirable children were punished and those who produced racially desirable children were awarded . To encourage women to produce many children, Honour Crosses were awarded. A bronze cross was given for four children, silver for six and gold for eight or more. all ‘Aryan ‘ women who deviated from the prescribed code of conduct were publicly condemned and  severely punished, were paraded though the  town with shaved heads, blackened faces and placards hanging around their necks announcing ‘I have sullied the honour of the nation’. Many received jail sentences and lost civic honour as well as their husbands and families for this ‘criminal offence’.

(b) The Nazi regime used language and media with care, and often to great effect, the terms they confined to describe their various practices are not only deceptive. They are chilling. Mass killing were termed special treatment, final solution (for the Jews), euthanasia (for the disabled) selection and disinfections. Gas chambers were labeled ‘disinfection-area’. Media was carefully used to win support for the regime and popularize its worldview. The most infamous film was The Etemal Jew. Orthodox Jews were stereotyped and marked. They were referred to as vermin, rats and pests. Their movements were to those of rodents. Nazism worked on the minds of the people, tapped their emotions, and turned their hatred and anger at those marked as ‘undesirable’.

ORDINARY PEOPLE AND THE CRIMES ACANTNS HUMANITY

Many saw the world through Nazi eyes, and spoke their mind in Nazi language. They felt hatred and anger surge inside, marked the houses of Jews and reported suspicious neighbors, belived Nazism would bring prosperity and improved general well-being. The large majority of Germans, however, were passive onlookers and apathetic witnesses. They were too scared to act, to differ, to protest. Pastor Niemoeller, a resistance fighter, observed an absence of protest, an uncanny silence, amongst ordinary Germans in the face of brutal and organized crimes committed people in the Nazi empire. Charitte Beradt secretly recorded people’s dreams in her diary and later published them in a highly disconcerting book called the Third Reich of Dreams. The stereotypical image publicized in the Nazi press haunted the Jews. They troubled them even in their dreams. Jew died many deaths even before they reached the gas chamber.

Question. What were the provisions of treaty of Versailles?
Answer : The treaty of Versailles was harsh and humiliating one. It’s provisions were:-
1.Germany lost its overseas colonies, a tenth of it’s population,13 percent of it’s territories,75 percent of its iron and 26 percent of its coal to France, Poland, Denmark and Lithuania.
2.The allied powers demilitarized Germany to weaken its power.
3.Germany was forced to pay compensation of the damages. Allied countries Suffered amounting to $6 billion.
4.The allied armies also occupied the resource rich Rhineland for much of 1920’s.-

Question. Who were the NOVEMBER CRIMINALS ?
Answer : After Germany lost in world war 1 and its emperor was abdicated, a national assembly was formed atWeimar i.e the German parliament.It was known as Weimar republic, mainly socialists, catholics and democrats and became easy targets of attack in the conservative nationalist circles.They were mockingly called “NOVEMBER CRIMINALS”

Question. Explain the following:-
Answer :
1.ALLIES-The Allies powers were initially led by the UK and France.In 1941 they were joined by the USSR and USA.They fought against powers namely GERMANY,ITALY and JAPAN.
2.REISHSTAG- After Germany lost in world war 1,a national assembly met at Weimar and established a democratic constitution with a federal structure in Germany.The newly elected german parliament was called REISHSTAG.
3.CONCENTRATION CAMPS-A camp where people were isolated and detained without due process of law. Typically it was surrounded by electrified fences.
4.JUNGVOLK- Nazi youth groups for children below 14 years of age.
5.HOLOCAUST-The nazi rilling operationa during which the jews endured atrocities and suffereing were called as HOTOCAUST.
6.LEKENSRAUMOR LIVING SPACE-It was the geopolitical concept of Hitler’s ideology.He believed that new territories had to be acquired for settlement which would enhance the area of mother country and enable the settelers on new lands to retain an intimate link with the place of origin.
7.GESTAPO OR THE SECRET STATE POLICE-It was a special surveillance and security force created to control and order society in ways that the Nazis wanted. It was thus given extra constitutional powers.
8.NUREMBERG TRIBUNAL-At the end of world war 2,an international military tribunal at Nuremberg was set up to prosecute nazi war criminals for crimes against peace, against humanity, for war crimes.
9.NAZI PARTY-German worker’s party was a small group and was joined by Adolph Hitler in 1919 who subsequently took over the organization and renamed it as the NATIONAL SOCIALIST GERMAN WORKER’S PARTYor NAZI PARTY.
10.GREAT ECONOMIC DEPRESSION-During this factories were shut down,exports fell, farmers were badly hit and speculators withdrew their money from the market. The effects of this recession in US economy were felt worldwide.

Short Answer Type Questions

Question. Describe any three conditions of the Treaty of Versailles. 
OR
Explain any three effects of the Treaty of Versailles over Germany.
OR
State any three major effects of the First World War on Germany.
Answer : Impact of the Treaty of Versailles over Germany :
(i) Germany lost its overseas colonies.
(ii) It was demilitarised.
(iii) The Allied armies occupied the resource-rich Rhineland.
(iv) It lost 75 per cent of its Iron and 26 per cent of its Coal to France, Poland, Denmark & Lithuania.

Question. Explain any three effects of Nazism on the School System. 
Answer : Effects of Nazism on the School System :
(i) Hitler was fanatically interested in the Youth of the Country. He believed in teaching the Nazi Ideology to the Students.
(ii) Jewish Teachers who were seen as politically unreliable were dismissed from service.
(iii) Children were segregated – German and Jews could not sit or play together.
(iv) Good German children were subjected to a process of Nazi Schooling, a prolonged period of Ideological training.
(v) School Textbooks were rewritten to glorify and justify the Nazi Ideas of Racial Superiority.
(vi) Children were taught to be loyal, submissive and hate the Jews.
(vii) Sports were introduced to nurture violence and aggression among students. Hitler believed that ‘Boxing could make children iron hearted, strong and masculine.

Question. List the communities which were classified as Undesirable in Nazi Germany. 
Answer : Undesirable communities in Nazi Germany were :
(i) Gypsies and Blacks those living in Nazi Germany.
(ii) Russians and Poles were considered subhuman.
(iii) Jews too were inferior, threatening biological purity of the ‘Superior Aryan’ Race.

Question. Describe the role of Propaganda Films in creating hatred for Jews. 
Answer : (i) Most infamous film was the ‘Eternal Jew’ in which orthodox Jews were stereotyped and marked.
(ii) They were shown with flowing beards wearing kaftans
(iii) They were referred to as vermin, rats and pests. Their movements were compared to those of rodents.

Question. Name the country that defeated Germany in the First World War. State two effects of defeat in Germany.
Answer : US joined the Allies in 1917 and defeated Germany and the Central Powers. Effects :
(i) The defeat of Germany resulted in the abdication of German Emperor. This gave an opportunity for the Parliamentary Parties to bring a change in German Politics.
(ii) A Democratic Constitution with a federal structure was formed by the National Assembly, which met at Weimar and the Weimar Republic came into existence.

Question. What were the defects of Weimar republic ?
Answer : The two defects of Weimar republic were:-
1. Its proptional representation which made achieving a majaority by any one party, a nearly impossible task,leading to a rule by coilations.\
2.The article 48 which gave the president the powers to empose emergency suspend civil rights and rule by decre.

Question. Why was the treaty of Versailles a humiliating experience for Germany because:-
Answer :
1. Germany lost its overseas colonies, a tenth of it’s population,13 percent of it’s territories,75 percent of its iron and 26 percent of its coal to France, Poland, Denmark and Lithuania.
2. The allied powers demilitarized Germany to weaken its power.
3. The war guilt cause held Germany responsible for war and forced to pay compensation amounting to $6 billion.
4. The allied armies also occupied the resource rich Rhineland for much of the 1920’s Many Germans held the new Weimar republic responsible for not only the defeat but the disgrace at Versailles.

Question. In what ways did the Nazi state seek to establish total control over its people?
Answer : Once in power the Nazis quickly began to implement their clream of creating an exclusive racial community of pure germans by physically eliminating all those who were seen as undesirable.
• Nazis only wantd a society of pure blooded worchac Aryans.They were alone considered desirable.
• Only they were seen as a worthy of propertying and multiplying.
• Gypsies and blacks were considered as racially inferior, which threatened the biological purity of the superior Aryans had.
• Even Russians and poles were considered subhumans and hence undesiring of any humanity.
• When germany occupied Poland and parts of Russia,captured civilians were forced to work as slave labour. Many of them died of starvation and hardwork.
• Jews remained the worst suffered in nazi germany .The hatred of jews had a precurson in the traditional Christian hostility towards jews .Thay have been stereotyped as killers of Christ.

Question. Explain why nazi propaganda was effective in creating a hatred for jews?
Answer : The Nazis used language and media with care and often to great effects.
• They used deceptive practices. Nazis never used the “work or murder”.Mass killings were termed “special treatment”, “enthansia”, “selection” and “disinfection”.
•  Media was carefully used to gain support and popularize it worldwide.
• The ideas were spread through images, films, radioposters,groups identified as enimies were stereotyped,mocked,abused.
• Socialists and liberals were represented as weak and degenerate.
• Propoganda films were made to create hatred.They were shown with flowing beards,wearing raftan whereas in reality it was difficult to distinguish german jews by their appearance.
• They were reffered as vermis,rats as pests.Their movements were compared to those of rodents. Nazism worked on the minds of the people trapped their emotions and turned hatred and anger at those marked as undersirable.

Question. Explain the role of women in nazi society?
Answer : In nazi society women were created different than men.
• The principal role assigned to women was to become good mothers and give birth to pure blooded Aryan children. They were motivated for this.
• Their main obligence was to maintain the purity of race. They were expected to look after their homes and teach children Nazi values.

Question. Discuss why Nazism became popular in Germany by 1930?
Answer : It was during the great depression that nazizim became a mass movement
• Banks collapsed, bussinesses shut down, workers lost their jobs. In such a
• Situation Nazi propaganda sterred hopes of a better future.
• Hitler was a powerful speaker. His passion and hid words move people he p promised to build a strong nation undo the justice if Versailles treaty and restore dignity.
• He provisioned employment for those looking for work and a secure future for the youth. He promised to use all foreign influences.
• He advised a new style of politics. He understood the significance of rituals mass mobilization.
• He held massive rallies and public meetings.

Question. What are peculiar feature of Nazi thinking ?
Answer : In their view there was no equality between people but only a racial hierarchy.
• In this world blood, blue eyed norchiacs were at the top while jews were at the lowest. They were as regarded as anti racial.
• All other coloured people were placed in between depending on their features.
• Hitler’s other ideology was that new territories had to be acquired. This would enhance the area of mother country while enabling settelers to newer lands. It would also enhance the material resources.

Question. Describe the problems faced by Weimar republic?
Answer : The Weimar republic faced economic and political problems.
• Because of the treaty and Versailles Germany had to pay large amounts of money for the damages caused to the allied powers. It also had to pay huge sums of loans taken to fight the war which was taking away all of German’s gold reserves.
• Because of the govt. was very unstable, emergency was emposed a number of times so people had lost their confidence in the democtatic parliamentary systems.
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Question. What were the economic effects of great depression on Germany?
Answer : The economic effects of depression on Germany were:-
• By 1932 industrial production was reduced to 40% of the 1929 level.
Workers lost their job or were paid reduced wages. The no. of unemployed touched and unprecedented 6 million on the streets of Germany. You could see men with playcards around their necks saying “willing do any work”.
• Unemployed played cards or sat at streets or desperately qued up at the unemployment exchange.
• As jobs disappeared, youth took to criminal activities and total despair become commonplace.
• The economic crisis created deep anxieties and faces in people.
• The middle class salaried employees and pensioners saw their savings diminise when the currency it’s value.
• Smal businessman, self employed retailers suffered as their business got ruined.
• They were with the fear of protectarisation , an anxiety of being reduced to the ranks of the unemployed.
• Only organized workers could manage to keep their heads above water but unemployment weakened their bargaining powers. Big businessman were in crisis.
• The large mass of peasantry was affected by a sharp fall in agricultural prices and women unable to fill their children’s stomachs were filled with a sense of deep despair.
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Question. What were the political effects of Great depression on Germany?
Answer : In addition to the crisis the Weimar republic had some inherent defects, which made it unstable and vulnerable to dictatorship
.• One was the proptional representation which was an impossible task to achieve majority.
• The other-Article 48 gave the president too much powers to impose emergency, suspend civil rights and rule by decre.
• Within its short life, the Weimar republic saw 20 different cabinets lasting on an average 239 days and a liberal use of article 48.
• But the crises could not be managed people,and they lost confidence in the democratic parlimentary system, which seemed to offer no solution.