Holocaust
- Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, or the Third
Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was
under the firm control of the totalitarian ideology of the Nazi Party,
with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator.
The Third Reich is an Anglicization of the German expression Drittes
Reich, and is used as a near-synonym for Nazi Germany, that refers to
the government and its agencies rather than the land and its people. The
term was first used in 1922, as the title of a book, by conservative
writer Arthur Moeller van den Bruck. It was adopted by Nazi propaganda,
which counted the Holy Roman Empire as the first Reich, the 1871–1918
German Empire the second, and its own regime as the third. This was done
in order to suggest a return to alleged former German glory after the
perceived failure of the 1919 Weimar Republic. The disorder and poverty
caused by the Great Depression and fear of Communism allowed the Nazis
to gain power.
The Third Reich was sometimes also referred to as the "Thousand Year
Reich," as it was intended by its founder to stand for one thousand
years — similar to the Holy Roman Empire. Because it lasted only 12
years, historians sometimes call it the "Twelve Year Reich." The Nazi
Party attempted to combine traditional symbols of Germany with Nazi
Party symbols in an effort to reinforce the perception of them as being
one and the same. Thus the Nazi Party used the terms "Third Reich" and
"Thousand Year Reich" to connect the allegedly glorious past to its
supposedly glorious future. Initially Hitler's plans seemed to be well
on their way to fruition. At its height, the Third Reich controlled the
greater part of Europe. However, due to the defeat by the Allied powers
in World War II, the Thousand Year Reich in fact lasted only 12 years
(from 1933 through to 1945). There is evidence that Hitler himself
disliked the term "Drittes Reich", because of its suggestion that his
new order stood in a subordinate position to its predecessors, but a
copy of Moeller's book was found in the Berlin bunker where both Hitler
and his Reich came to their violent end.
During their 12-year rule, the Nazis sent massive armies throughout
almost all of continental Europe (with the exception of Switzerland,
Liechtenstein, Sweden, Portugal, Andorra and the land near the Ural
Mountains). As part of this, the Nazis endorsed the idea of a Greater
Germany with Berlin renamed Germania as its capital, and integration of
all people of supposed pure Germanic origin. This policy manifested
itself in the systematic extermination of 11 million people of racial
minority (Jews, Gypsies) and other social outcasts (communists,
homosexuals), as well as tens of millions of others as a direct or
indirect result of combat.
Chronology of events
* Weimar Republic (includes the events leading to Hitler's appointment
as Chancellor of Germany in 1933)
* Gleichschaltung (for the legal measures taken by the Nazis to
establish their dictatorship)
* World War II (with a focus on military events)
* Axis Powers
Pre-War Politics 1933-1939
Berlin during the Nazi era.
Enlarge
Berlin during the Nazi era.
On January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor by President Paul
von Hindenburg after attempts by General Kurt von Schleicher to form a
viable government failed and under heavy pressure from former Chancellor
Franz von Papen. Even though the Nazi Party had gained the largest share
of the popular vote in the two Reichstag general elections of 1932, they
had no majority in parliament.
Consolidation of power
The new government installed dictatorship in a series of measures in
quick succession (Gleichschaltung for details). On February 27, 1933
Hermann Göring orchestrated the Reichstag building fire, which was
followed immediately with the Reichstag Fire Decree, which rescinded
Habeas corpus, and other protective laws. Further consolidation of power
was achieved on January 30, 1934, with the Gesetz über den Neuaufbau des
Reichs (act to rebuild the Reich). The act changed the highly
decentralized federal Germany of the Weimar era into a centralized
state. It disbanded state parliaments, transferred sovereign rights of
the states to the Reich central government and put the state
administrations under the control of the Reich administration. At the
death of president Hindenburg on August 2, 1934, the Nazi controlled
Reichstag merged the offices of Reichspräsident and Reichskanzler and
reinstalled Hitler with the new title Führer und Reichskanzler.
Third Reich flag 1933-1935 (then forbidden by the Nazis as
"reactionary")
Enlarge
Third Reich flag 1933-1935 (then forbidden by the Nazis as
"reactionary")
Only the army remained independent from Nazi control, and the
quasi-militant Nazi military organisation SA expected top positions in
the new power structure. Wanting to preserve good relations with the
army Hitler, on the night of June 30, 1934, initiated what is known as
the Night of the Long Knives, which was a purge of the leadership ranks
of the SA as well as other political enemies, carried out by another,
more elitist, Nazi organisation, the SS. Shortly thereafter the army
leaders swore their obedience to Hitler.
The institution of the Gestapo, police to act outside of any civil
authority, highlighted the Nazi's intention to hold powerful means of
directly controlling German society. Soon, mirroring Stalin's terror in
the Soviet Union, an estimated army of about 100,000 spies and
infiltrants operated throughout Germany, reporting to Nazi officials the
activities of any critics or dissenters. Most ordinary Germans, happy
with the improving economy and better standard of living remained
obedient and quiet, but many political opponents, especially communists
and socialists, were reported by omnipresent eavesdropping spies, and
put in prison camps where they were severely mistreated, and many
tortured and killed. Estimates of political victims range in dozens of
thousands dead and disappeared in the first few years of Nazi rule.
For political opposition during this period, see German resistance
movement.
Social policy
The Nazi regime was characterized by political control of every aspect
of society in a quest for racial (Aryan, Nordic), social and cultural
purity. Modern abstract art and avant-garde art was thrown out of
museums, and put on special displays of "Degenerate art" where it was
ridiculed. However, the crowds attending these displays of "decadent
art" frequently eclipsed those attending officially sanctioned displays.
In one notable example on March 31, 1937, huge crowds stood in line to
view a special display of "degenerate art" in Munich while a
concurrently running exhibition of 900 works personally approved by
Adolf Hitler attracted a tiny, unenthusiastic gathering.
The Nazi Party pursued its aims through persecution and killing of those
considered impure, especially against targeted minority groups such as
Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals.
By the Nuremberg Laws passed in 1935, Jews were stripped of their German
citizenship and denied government employment. Most Jews employed by
Germans lost their jobs at this time, their jobs being taken by
unemployed Germans. On November 9, 1938, the Nazi party incited a pogrom
against Jewish businesses called the Kristallnacht ("Crystal Night" =
Night of Broken Glass); the euphemism was used because the numerous
broken windows made the streets look as if covered with crystal. By
September 1939, more than 200,000 Jews had left Germany, with the Nazi
government seizing any property they left behind.
The Nazis also undertook programs targeting "weak" or "unfit" members of
their own population as well, such as the T-4 Euthanasia Program which
killed off tens of thousands of disabled and sickly Germans in an effort
to "maintain the purity of the German Master race" (German: Herrenvolk)
as described by Nazi propagandists. The techniques of mass-killing
developed in these efforts would later be used in the Holocaust. Under a
law passed in 1933, the Nazi regime carried out the compulsory
sterilization of over 400,000 individuals labeled as having hereditary
defects, ranging from mental illness to alcoholism.
See Racial policy of Nazi Germany (history of discrimination policies)
Economic Policy
The Reichsmark gained significant value under the Third Reich
Enlarge
The Reichsmark gained significant value under the Third Reich
The economic management of the state was first given to respected banker
Hjalmar Schacht. Under his guidance, a new economic policy to elevate
the nation was drafted, limiting imports of consumer goods and focusing
on producing exports. Massive loans and credits were issued by the
Reichsbank to industries and the individuals who ran them.
The German economy was later transferred to the leadership of Hermann
Göring when, on October 18, 1936, the German Reichstag announced the
formation of a Four year plan to shift the German economy towards a war
production base. The four year plan technically expired in 1940, but by
this time Hermann Göring had built up a power base in the "Office of the
Four Year Plan" which effectively controlled all German economic and
production matters.
Under the leadership of Fritz Todt a massive public works project was
started, rivaling the New Deal in both size and scope; its most notable
achievement was the Autobahn. Once the war started, the massive
organization that Todt founded was used in building bunkers, underground
facilities and entrenchments all over Europe. Another part of the new
German economy was massive rearmament with the goal being to expand the
100,000-strong German Army into a force of millions.
World War II
See: Military history of Germany during World War II
The Nazi war flag
Enlarge
The Nazi war flag
In 1939 Germany's actions led to the outbreak of World War II in Europe.
Poland, France, Denmark, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands were
invaded. Initially, the United Kingdom could do little to come to the
rescue of its European allies and Germany subjected Britain to heavy
bombing during the Battle of Britain. After invading Greece and North
Africa, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. It declared war on the
United States in December of 1941 after the Japanese bombed Pearl
Harbor.
The persecution of minorities continued both in Germany and the occupied
areas. From 1941 Jews were required to wear a yellow star in public, and
most were transferred to ghettos, where they remained isolated from the
rest of the population. In January 1942, at the Wannsee conference under
the supervision of Reinhard Heydrich, a plan for the "Final Solution of
the Jewish Question" (Endlösung der Judenfrage) in Europe was hatched.
From then until the end of the war some 6 million Jews and many others,
including homosexuals, Slavs and political prisoners, were
systematically killed and more than 10 million people were put into
slavery. This genocide is called the Holocaust in English and the Shoah
in Hebrew. (The Nazis used the euphemistic German term Endlösung—"final
solution".) Thousands were shipped daily to extermination camps (Vernichtungslager,
sometimes called "death factories") and concentration camps (Konzentrationslager,
abbrev. KZ), some of which were originally detention centers but later
converted into mass-murder factories, or had death camps added to their
facilities, for the purpose of killing of their inmates.
Parallel to the Holocaust the Nazis conducted a ruthless program of
conquest, colonization and exploitation over the captured Soviet and
Polish territories and their Slavic populations as part of their
Generalplan Ost. According to estimates, 20 million Soviet civilians, 3
million non-Jewish Poles, and 7 million Red Army soldiers died under the
Nazi maltreatment in what the Russians call the Great Patriotic War. The
Nazis' plan was to extend German lebensraum ("living space") eastward,
but their public pretext for launching the war in Eastern Europe was "to
defend Western Civilization against Bolshevism".
After losing the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943 and the Battle of Normandy
in 1944, the regime started to disintegrate quickly, losing ground to
the Western Allies in the west and south and the Red Army in the east.
By spring 1945 the Allies had invaded Germany proper. On April 30, 1945,
as Berlin was being taken by Soviet forces, Hitler committed suicide. On
May 4–8, 1945, the German armed forces surrendered unconditionally. This
was the end of World War II in Europe and, with the creation of the
Allied Control Council on June 5, 1945, the four Allied powers "assume[d]
supreme authority with respect to Germany" (Declaration Regarding the
Defeat of Germany, US Department of State, Treaties and Other
International Acts Series, No. 1520).
Aftermath
The winning allies first split Germany into occupation zones. At the
Potsdam Conference German borders within the Soviet occupation zone were
moved westward, with most territory given to Poland while about half of
East Prussia was annexed by the Soviet Union. The German exodus from
Eastern Europe, which was initiated by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, was
after the war completed when virtually all Germans in Central Europe had
been "resettled" to west of the Oder-Neisse line, with up to about 10
million ethnic Germans affected. The French, US and British occupation
zones later became West Germany, while the Soviet zone became the
communist East Germany. West Germany recovered economically by the 1960s
being called the economic miracle (German term Wirtschaftswunder) due to
economic aid by the United States of America (Marshall Plan), while the
East recovered at a slower pace under Communism until 1990 due to
reparation paid to the Soviet Union and the effects of the centrally
planned economy.
After the war, surviving Nazi leaders were put on trial by the Allied
tribunal at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity. Although a minority
were sentenced to death and executed, most were released by the
mid-1950s on account of health and old age. Many continued to live well
into the 1970s and 80s. In all non-fascist European countries legal
purges were established to punish the members of the former Nazi and
Fascist parties. An uncontrolled punishment hit the children of Nazis
and those fathered by German soldiers in occupied territories, including
the "Lebensborn" children.
See Nuremberg Trials
Organization of the Third Reich
The leaders of Nazi Germany created a large number of different
organizations for the purpose of helping them in staying in power. They
rearmed and strengthened the military, set up an extensive state
security apparatus and created their own personal party army, the Waffen
SS.
Through a bureaucratic staffing of most government positions with Nazi
Party members, by 1935 the German federal government and the Nazi Party
had become virtually one and the same. By 1938, through the policy of
Gleichschaltung, local and state governments lost all legislative power
and answered administratively to Nazi party leaders, known as Gauleiters.
The organization of the Nazi state, as of 1944, was as follows:
Head of State and Chief Executive
* Führer und Reichskanzler (Adolf Hitler)
Cabinet and Federal authorities
* Office of the Reich Chancellery (Hans Lammers)
* Office of the Party Chancellery (Martin Bormann)
* Office of the Presidial Chancellery (Otto Meissner)
* Privy Cabinet Council (Konstantin von Neurath)
Reich Offices
* Office of the Four Year Plan (Hermann Göring)
* Office of the Reich Master Forester (Hermann Göring)
* Office of the Inspector for Highways
* Office of the President of the Reich Bank
* Reich Youth Office
* Reich Treasury Office
* General Inspector of the Reich Capitol
* Office of the Councillor for the Capitol of the Movement (Munich,
Bavaria)
Reich Ministries
* Reich Foreign Ministry (Joachim von Ribbentrop)
* Reich Interior Ministry (Wilhelm Frick, Heinrich Himmler)
* Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (Joseph
Goebbels)
* Reich Ministry of Aviation (Hermann Göring)
* Reich Ministry of Finance (Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk)
* Reich Ministry of Justice (Franz Schlegelberger)
* Reich Economics Ministry (Walther Funk)
* Reich Ministry for Nutrition and Agriculture (Walther Darre)
* Reich Labor Ministry (Franz Seldte)
* Reich Ministry for Science, Education, and Public Instruction
(Bernhard Rust)
* Reich Ministry for Ecclesiastical Affairs (Hanns Kerrl)
* Reich Transportation Ministry (Julius Dorpmüller)
* Reich Postal Ministry (Wilhelm Ohnesorge)
* Reich Ministry for Weapons, Munitions, and Armament (Fritz Todt,
Albert Speer)
* Reich Ministers without Portfolio (Konstantin von Neurath, Hans Frank,
Hjalmar Schacht, Artur Seyss-Inquart)
Occupation authorities
* Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (Alfred Rosenberg)
* General Government of Poland (Hans Frank)
* Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (Konstantin von Neurath)
o Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia (Reinhard Heydrich)
* Office of the Military Governor of France
Legislative Branch
* Reichstag
o Speaker of the Reichstag (Hermann Göring)
* Reichsrat (disbanded February 14, 1934)
Military
(Wehrmacht — Armed Forces)
* Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) — Armed Forces High Command
* Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH) — Army High Command
* Oberkommando der Marine (OKM) — Navy High Command
* Oberkommando der Luftwaffe (OKL) — Airforce High Command
* Heer — Army
* Luftwaffe — Airforce
o Reichsluftschutzbund — Nazi Party Airforce Auxiliary Reserve
* Kriegsmarine — Navy
* Abwehr — Military Intelligence
Paramilitary organisations
* Sturmabteilung (SA)
* Schutzstaffel (SS)
o Allgemeine SS
o Waffen SS
o Germanische SS
* Deutscher Volkssturm
* Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrerkorps (NSKK)
* Nationalsozialistisches Fliegerkorps (NSFK)
State police
Reich Central Security Office (RSHA — Reichssicherheitshauptamt)
* Regular Police (Ordnungspolizei (Orpo))
o Schutzpolizei (Safety Police)
o Gendarmerie (Rural Police)
o Gemeindepolizei (Local Police)
* Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo))
o Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo)
o Reich Kriminalpolizei (Kripo)
o Sicherheitsdienst (SD)
Political organizations
* Nazi Party — National Socialist German Workers Party (abbreviated
NSDAP)
* Youth organisations
o Hitler-Jugend — Hitler-youth (for boys and young men)
o Bund Deutscher Mädel (for girls and young women)
o Deutsches Jungvolk (for very young boys and girls ages 6-8)
Labour organizations
* Deutschen Arbeitsfront
o Reichsarbeitsdienst
o Kraft durch Freude
* Organisation Todt
o Transport Korps Speer
Service organizations
* Deutsche Reichsbahn (State Railway)
* Reichspost (State Postal Service)
* Deutsches Rotes Kreuz (German Red Cross)
Religious organisations
* German Christians
* Protestant Reich Church
Academic organizations
* National Socialist German University Teachers League
* National Socialist German Students League
Prominent persons in Nazi Germany
For a listing of Hitlers cabinet see : Hitler's Cabinet, January 1933 -
April 1945
Nazi Party and Nazi government leaders and officials
* Adolf Hitler — Führer
* Hermann Göring — Reichsmarshall and Minister-President of Prussia. Air
Minister.
* Rudolf Hess — the Führer's Deputy.
* Joseph Goebbels — Minister of Propaganda
* Heinrich Himmler — Head of the SS
* Albert Speer — First Architect, Minister for Armament from 1942
* Martin Bormann — Head of the Nazi Party
* Joachim von Ribbentrop — Foreign Minister
* Alfred Rosenberg — Reichsleiter
* Walter Funk — Minister of Industries
* Wilhelm Frick — Minister of the Interior
* Hans Lammers — Head of the Reich Chancellery
* Otto Meissner — Head of the Chancellery
* Hjalmar Schacht — Minister, President of the Reichsbank
* Konstantin von Neurath — Head of the Secret Cabinet.
* Fritz Todt — Inspector-General for Roads
* Hans Frank — Minister, Head of the German Law Academy
* Robert Ley — Leader of the German Labor Front
* Baldur von Schirach — Leader of Nazi Youth Organisations
* Arthur Seyß-Inquart — Reichsstatthalter in Austria, Commissioner for
the Occupied Netherlands
* Franz Guertner — Minister of Justice
* Karl Brandt
* Alois Brunner
* Hanns Kerrl — Minister for Ecclesiastical
* Otto Dietrich — Secretary of State, Reich Chief of the Press
* Karl Hanke — Secretary of State, Propaganda Ministry
* Bernhard Rust — Minister of Education
* Franz Seldte — Minister of Labor
* Konstantin Hierl — Head of the Labour Service
* Hans von Tschammer und Osten — Secretary of State and Reich Sports
Leader
* Gertrud Scholtz-Klink — Reich Leader of Women
* Ernst Wilhelm Bohle — Secretary of State, Head of the Foreign
Organization
* Viktor Lutze Chief of Staff of the SA
* Roland Freisler
* Hans Fritzsche
* Ernst Röhm
* Karl Otto Koch
* Herbert Lange
* Arthur Axmann
* Alfred Meyer
* Erich Priebke
* Fritz Sauckel
* Carl Schmitt
* Julius Streicher
* Josef Terboven
SS personnel
* See: List of SS Personnel
Military
* Karl Dönitz-Commander of the German U-Boat force, later the German
Navy
* Erwin Rommel
* Wilhelm Keitel
* Claus von Stauffenberg
* Wilhelm Canaris
* Alfred Jodl
* Erich Raeder
* Robert Ritter von Greim
Other
* Gottfried Benn
* Eva Braun
* Wernher von Braun
* Houston Stewart Chamberlain
* Anton Drexler
* Gottfried Feder
* Friedrich Flick
* Theodor Fritsch
* Arthur de Gobineau
* Hans Friedrich Karl Günther (not to be confused with Hans Günther)
* Karl Harrer
* Willibald Hentschel
* Alfred Hoche
* Armin D. Lehmann
* Lanz von Liebenfels
* Guido von List
* Karl Lueger
* Alfred Ploetz
* Ferdinand Porsche
* John Rabe
* Geli Raubal
* Leni Riefenstahl
* Johannes Stark
* Rudolf von Sebottendorf
* Richard Sorge
* Walter Thiel
* Richard Wagner
* Winifred Wagner
* Konrad Zuse
Noted victims
* Bruno Bettelheim
* Dietrich Bonhoeffer
* Georg Elser
* Anne Frank
* Primo Levi
* Janusz Korczak
* Erich Mühsam
* Carl von Ossietzky
* White Rose (Sophie and Hans Scholl and others)
* Bruno Schulz
* Ernst Thälmann
Noted refugees
* Albert Bassermann
* Johannes R. Becher
* Rudolf Belling
* Walter Benjamin
* Bertolt Brecht
* Marlene Dietrich
* Albert Einstein
* Lion Feuchtwanger
* Sigmund Freud
* Kurt Gödel
* Walter Gropius
* Friedrich Hayek
* Heinrich Eduard Jacob
* Theodor Kramer
* Fritz Lang
* Thomas Mann
* Ludwig von Mises
* Anna Seghers
Noted survivors
* Eugen Kogon
* Martin Niemöller
* Kurt Schumacher
* Franz von Papen
* Roman Polanski
* Elie Wiesel
* Arnulf Øverland
From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany
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