Adolf Hitler and his political cronies formed the N.S.D.A.P. (Nationalsozialistiche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or “Nazi” Party) in early 1920s. In 1923 the Nazis tested their power by attempting to take over the government of the state of Bavaria in the “Beer Hall Putsch.” Hitler was arrested and served time in Landsberg prison, where he wrote Mein Kampf (“My Struggle.”)Hitler was released after less than a year, and the Nazi Party gradually gained strength in the late 1920s and early 1930s thirties through the use of the Sturmabteilung (Storm Troopers or S.A. known as the brown-shirts from their uniforms), which whipped up enthusiasm for the Nazis and intimidated other political groups. Hitler successfully exploited the general discontent in Germany which had arisen because of economic problems and the festering resentment over the Versailles Treaty.

1933: When the Nazis grew too strong to be ignored, having become the second largest party in Germany, Hitler was invited by German President Hindenburg to become Chancellor in a coalition government. Soon thereafter the Reichstag fire was used to expel the Communists from the Reichstag (Parliament.) Hitler used Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution to get the legislative process suspended, and from that time forward he ruled Germany by decree. Hitler then combined the offices of President and Chancellor, abandoned both and began calling himself “The Leader” (Der Fuerher.) Then he forced all Army officers to swear an oath of personal allegiance to himself. The Nazi takeover was swift and thorough: Freedom of the press ended—Nazi organs carried news and distributed  propaganda. In the last free election in Germany in March, 1933, the Nazis got 44% of the vote.

Hitler then used the Schuetzstaffel, the S.S., a special body guard within the S.A., to eliminate his political enemies. The S.S. eventually grew to over one million men and reached into every facet of German public life having political significance, through direct controls, infiltration, informants and intimidation. High school and university professors were purged unless they followed the party line. History was rewritten, extolling the virtues of ancient Germans such as “Karl der Grosse” (Charles the Great, otherwise known as Charlemagne.) The Secret State Police (Gestapo) were a sub-unit of the S.S. that dominated all German police forces down to the local level. Germans became enamored with Hitler, but many were frightened of what Germany had become, a totalitarian state. Dissent was no longer tolerated; the S.S. became the guardian of Aryan purity, a state within a state.

Note: Avoid seeing the S.S. as super-efficient, well-oiled machine. There was much incompetence, petty bickering, waste, foolishness, backbiting. Reinhard Heydrich, Gestapo Chief, was keeping a dossier on the whole ménage; he was finally assassinated in Lidice, Czechoslovakia, by Czech commandos, and everyone in the town was executed in retaliation.

Significant Events in Germany’s Rise

1934. “The Night of the Long Knives.” To purge the Nazi party of men whom Hitler saw as too ambitious for his good, if not for their own, he ordered the S.S. to go out and ruthlessly assassinate hundreds of party leaders during a single night, including S.A. leader Ernst Röhm, leaving a residue of those whose loyalty he could trust. This organized murder campaign operated with disregard for the law, for the simple reason that Hitler's S.S., led by Heinrich Himmler, and the Gestapo had spread its tentacles into the entire German legal and law enforcement system. The Nazi party was rapidly becoming the law, designed with but one purpose, which was to do Hitler's will.

Rearmament. After Hitler consolidated his power in 1933-34, he began moving gradually to restore Germany's military might. Using the S.S. to carry out various forms of coercion by blackmail or whatever means sufficed, Hitler removed top generals who were unsympathetic to the Nazi goals and replaced them with generals open to the idea of expansion by force. Hitler used the Hitler Jugend—“Hitler Youth,” a kind of Nazi boy scout organization that was mandatory for teenaged youth—as a means of preparing German boys to enter military service, and the German education system in schools and universities was saturated with Nazi philosophy, so that junior enlisted men and officers were also indoctrinated in Hitler's goals.

Even though many top German officers disapproved of Hitler and his methods, the rapid expansion of the Army and the need to develop contingency plans kept high-ranking staff officers busy so that they would not have time to be overly concerned about politics. As a result, the German officer corps, which since the time of Frederick the Great had adhered to the mission of protecting the German state from all enemies, internal or external, failed in its duty by allowing Hitler to bend its will to Nazi ends.  No other German institution had the power to stop Hitler.

With the generals on board, Hitler renounced the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty and began the rearmament process. The German army, which had been limited to a strength of 100,000, was rapidly expanded, using the existing Army as a cadre from which to build a much larger force compatible with Hitler’s designs. In 1935 Hitler resumed the draft, raising the army to 500,000 for “defense.” The army was streamlined and condensed; every officer and NCO was ready to assume higher rank and responsibility as the ranks filled. Factories began turning out weapons and military vehicles, and the shipyards turned to rebuilding the German Navy. Submarine production went into high gear, and the massive battleship Bismarck was launched in 1939.

1935. Nuremberg Laws. In September 1935 the Reichstag began passage of a series of laws that stripped Jewish people of their citizenship and basic human rights. From that time on, Jews would be unable to escape intensified persecution. Marriage between Jews and non-Jewish Germans was prohibited, as were extramarital relations between Jews and gentiles. Jews were not allowed to fly the German flag or to display Reich colors. Citizenship became limited to “only that subject of German or kindred blood who proves by his conduct that he is willing and suited loyally to serve the German people and the Reich.” A November 1935 law declared that “A Jew cannot be a Reich citizen. He is not entitled to the right to vote on political matters; he cannot hold public office.”

1936.  Hitler took complete control of German foreign policy. His goals included the readjustment of eastern boundaries and the restoration of Germany to great power status. He repudiated the Locarno Treaty and ordered the army to reoccupy the Rhineland in violation of Versailles Treaty. The General Staff was reluctant to carry out the order, arguing that the army was not yet prepared for a confrontation with the French. Hitler ridiculed his officers to their faces, declaring them cowardly and announcing that the French and British would do nothing, and that his officer corps needed to take on his fearless demeanor. The Rhineland was reoccupied, the French and British did nothing, and the League of Nations denounced Hitler’s action but also took no action, with the result that Hitler was emboldened to go further.

1936.  The Spanish Civil War. When a leftist government took over Spain, the Army under General Francisco Franco rebelled. Germany and Italy rallied to Franco’s cause, which they identified as having common goals with their fascist philosophies, and the  conflict became a testing ground for German and Italian soldiers, pilots, weapons, technology, and tactics. The U.S., Great Britain and France decided to stay out to “localize” the conflict, but Russia supported the central government. Franco’s forces were victorious in 1939. The Spanish Civil War clearly demonstrated that the United States was now prevented from helping even friendly nations.

1937. In 1937 Hitler continued his campaign of purging Germany of what he saw as the poisonous influence of the Jews. The S.S., cooperating police forces now under the heel of the S.S. and hired thugs, carried out what became known as Kristallnacht—the “Night of Broken Glass.” Windows of Jewish businesses were smashed, Jews were dragged out of their homes and beaten, arrested, hauled away and otherwise terrorized. The world was beginning to see Nazism for what it really was.

1938. In March Hitler completed the annexation (Anschluss) of Austria. He announced as one of his major goals the unification of all German speaking peoples under a common flag. Following an intensive propaganda campaign in Austria, supported by Austrian officials sympathetic to the Nazi movement, the German army, again over the protests of the General staff who declared they were not yet ready for action, moved into Austria. But instead of being greeted with animosity, Hitler rode through the streets of Vienna in an open car, returning the Sieg Heil salute given along the way and waving to thousands of Austrians, who in return waved Nazi flags and cheered Hitler as he rode by triumphantly. (Hitler had been born in Austria and was returning “home.”)

1939. In August 1939 German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop engineered a Non-aggression Pact with The Soviet Union's Josef Stalin, clearing the way for German invasion of Poland. The S.S. concocted a phony incident along the German-Polish border, and again, having mounted a lengthy anti-Polish propaganda campaign, full of virulent anti-Polish ethnic degradation, the German Wehrmacht rolled across the border on September 1, demonstrating to the world for the first time the tactics that would become known as Blitzkrieg. On September 3 France and Great Britain declared war on Germany. The campaign in was over in a matter of weeks, long before France and Great Britain were capable of any kind of military action. While the Russians were taking advantage of their pact with Hitler to invade Finland, which held out until March 1940, the rest of the war came to a halt. During the winter of 1939-1940 the war was called a phony war or “Sitzkrieg” as nothing of any significance happened aside from the SS beginning its ethnic cleansing of Warsaw and the rest of Poland.

The failure of Appeasement: How did Hitler succeed?

• Hitler had a well-mapped out plan (Mein Kampf) and was good at politics and rhetoric.
• Hitler drew on tradition, evoking old notions of Germanic greatness—the Wagnerian themes: Volk, Blut, Einheit. (People, Blood, Unity.) The first empire had been the Holy Roman Empire of German Nations, the second the Empire declared by Bismarck after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. Hitler's was the be the Third Reich, the 1000-year empire.
• Hitler's program emphasized Prussian discipline, loyalty to state.
• The Nazis tapped into historic and pseudo-scientific prejudices against Jews, Slavs, other “Minderwertigen” (“unworthies.”) Anti-Semitism in Europe was neither new nor  unpopular and had a long history.
• National Socialism created an alliance between German government and business; industry remained in private hands, but production was directed toward the needs of the state.
• Nazi practices appealed to the masses through such things as government-mandated cheap vacations: “Kraft durch Freude,”—strength through joy. Hitler ordered auto makers to produce a cheap people's car, the People's Car or Volkswagen.
• The Nazis exploited middle class fears of communism and promised power to army conservatives who hated the Weimar Constitution.
• The Nazis organized massive parades and ceremonies, with patriotic speeches; Hitler was a powerful, captivating speaker. For the 1936 Nuremberg rally organizers used a ring of searchlights around the stadium pointed straight up the create the illusion of an ice palace; the audience was estimated at 200,000.
• Hitler's rearmament, creation of the Autobahns and other publics works took care of the jobless.
• Hitler had luck. Things broke favorably in political world, such as the timely (for Hitler) death of President Hindenburg, etc. Von Blomberg, the Minister of Defense, was a Nazi sympathizer. Hitler skillfully manipulated potential enemies into supporters.

1939. In August 1939 German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop engineered a Non-Aggression Pact with the Soviet Union's Josef Stalin, clearing the way for German invasion of Poland. Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels mounted a virulent, lengthy anti-Polish propaganda campaign, full of degrading anti-Polish ethnic rhetoric, and the S.S. concocted a phony incident along the German-Polish border. On September 1, 1939, the German Wehrmacht rolled across the Polish border and demonstrated to the world for the first time the tactics that would become known as Blitzkrieg. World War II in Europe had begun.

On September 3 France and Great Britain declared war on Germany, but the campaign in Poland was over in a matter of weeks, long before France and Great Britain were capable of any kind of military action. While the Russians were taking advantage of their pact with Hitler to invade Finland, which held out until March 1940, the rest of the war came to a halt. During the winter of 1939-1940 the war was called a phony war or “Sitzkrieg” as nothing of any significance happened aside from the SS beginning its ethnic cleansing of Warsaw and the rest of Poland.

1940. In the spring of 1940 Hitler invaded Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands. Then his army rolled through Belgium and flanked the French Maginot Line, a defensive wall built at the cost of millions of francs per mile, and France capitulated in six weeks. Hitler accepted the French surrender in the very same spot on which Germany had surrendered in 1918, after which he did a gleeful little jig, reveling in his moment of revenge.  While Germany was attacking France, Italy declared war on France, causing President Roosevelt to claim that, “On this tenth day of June, 1940, the hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor.”

Hitler’s Plan for Great Britain: Operation Seelöwe (Sea Lion.)  With France occupied and the French Vichy government more or less in collaboration with Germany, Hitler now stood “astride the European continent like a colossus.” Neutral Spain was friendly to Germany, and neutral Sweden was no threat. Soviet Russia was engaged with the Finns, and Hitler now turned his attention to Great Britain, which had not been successfully invaded since the Norman conquest of 1066. The accomplish the feat Germany would have to achieve air control over the English Channel was necessary, and Hitler ordered Goring's Luftwaffe to prepare the way. The resulting air war became known as the Battle of Britain, which was won by the Royal Air Force (R.A.F.) and about which Winston Churchill said, “Never have so many owed so much to so few.”

Infuriated by the failure and determined to break the British will, Hitler ordered a bombing campaign which was known as the “Blitz of London,” and German bombers rained destruction on British cities night after night during the winter of 1940-41.

1941.  In June 1941 Hitler, still frustrated, turned his wrath against his former partner, the Soviet Union, his fatal mistake. (Napoleon had made the same miscalculation in 1812.) Although German Panzer units initially drove deep into the heart of Russia, the Russian winter and the huge Soviet Army ultimately proved to be too much for Hitler's Wehrmacht. With the loss of an army of 600,000 men at Stalingrad in late 1942-43, the tide in Europe turned, and the huge Russian army, supplied heavily by American industry, began to drive the Germans off Russian soil and back towards Berlin.

December 11, 1941. After Pearl Harbor Hitler declared war on the U.S., which along with the Soviet victory at Stalingrad sealed Germany's fate.

Back to History 122 Part 3 | Updated November 2, 2006