Weimar and Nazi Germany
The Weimar Constitution
The impact of the Treaty of Versailles
1919 -1923: years of crisis?
The Munich Putsch
The Origins of the Nazi Party
Mein Kampf
1924 - 1929: A Golden era?
Gustav Stresemann
German Foreign Policy 1919 to 1933
Germany in the Depression
The Rise of the Nazi party
- Why did people vote for Hitler?
From Chancellor to Fuhrer
The failures of Weimar
Creating a totalitarian state
Nazi methods of control
- Organisation of the Nazi Party
- Obedience to the Fuhrer
Opposition to the Nazi's
Propaganda
- Nazi Ideology
The Economy under the Nazi's
- Schacht
- The 2nd 4 Year Plan
- Evaluation of the 4 Year Plan
- How successful was the policy of Autarky?
- German Labour Front
- Dr Robert Ley
Nazi Foreign Policy
- Did Hitler plan to have a Second
World War?
Education in Nazi Germany
Women in Nazi Germany
The Holocaust
- The Jewish Problem in 1933
- Kristallnacht
- Anti-Jewish Legislation
- Policy 1933 - 1937
- Origins of Anti-Semitism
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Did
Hitler Plan the Second World War?
Linked within the debate on how consistent and clear Hitler’s aim
to establish a vast empire based on racial purity is to judge whether
Hitler intended (and planned) to fight another war (in order to achieve
his aims).
Classic Interpretation
* Stereotype of Hitler the warmonger
* Character plotting to take over Eastern Europe and over-run Western
Europe
* Opposed and thwarted by a succession of European democracies who acceded
to a number of his demands for the sake of peace (appeasement).
* Accepted by many to be the official theory because “…it
fits the facts…” (M.Gilbert, 1973).
* A war of this size ‘had’ to be planned – it was not
possible for an event of this size to be accidental.
* Accepted teaching and theory that is still being felt today.
Revisionism (1960s onwards)
AJP Taylor dismissed the theory that Hitler was a ‘system-maker’
by arguing that it was counter productive for Hitler to want to destroy
present civilization and be the master of very little that remained.
* Taylor suggests that Hitler’s foreign policy (FP) was the legacy
of predecessors – they wanted to return Germany to the table of
great nations.
* Predictably Taylor was criticized for his academic theory.
* Regarded as an exercise in using the same information to come up with
a radically different theory.
o Taylor’s thesis, if nothing else, forced historians to consider
alternative ideas and to check their ideas before considering them to
be ultimate, concrete and finite.
Radical Critics
*
German historians from the ‘Programme School’ have been Taylor’s
fiercest critics.
* The Programme thesis relies heavily on a close reading of Mein Kampf
and Zweites Buch.
* They suggest (and argue) that Hitler’s FP was remarkably consistent
from its initial planning (1920s, Mein Kampf and Zweites Buch) right up
to its implementation in 1939.
* They point out that Hitler’s advantage was his flexible approach
– sometimes described as vague as well as adaptable.
* Hugh Trevor Roper (1953) pointed out that Mein Kampf was the blueprint
for Nazism although it did not contain a timetable of events nor did it
declare the order they should be achieved.
* Alan Milward has argued that there was no other intention for Hitler
when you consider and analyse his pre-war economic strategy.
* Hitler himself declared in Meim Kampf his distress and hatred of programmes
– describing them as simple exercises in gathering power.
Hitler Himself
* Roper and Taylor come to the same conclusion that Hitler was a power-hungry
opportunist who managed to exploit the conditions of the day.
* These theories discount Hitler’s will-power, determination and
single-minded approach to achieving Germany’s destiny.
* The Programme school point out that there is very little value in accepting
what Hitler said (almost on any occasion) to be a precise indication of
his immediate intentions.
Balance
* Documentary proof and analysis is scant.
* Many wartime documents are either inaccessibly stored in vaults or have
been destroyed.
* What is revealed from high-ranking Nazi diaries and evidence that is
left is the consistency of movement eastward in Hitler’s FP planning.
* Moving eastward satisfied national socialists and fulfilled the aims
of Nazi FP.
Summary Remarks
* Hitler was not the fantasist, crazy fanatic and pragmatist we have
all come to learn and accept – he was everything, at all times,
in different measures, for different moments.
* Whether for long-term or short-term goals Hitler had a vision if no
written plan.
* He was not consistent in his approach but consistent in his aims.
* Central to his concerns was the purification of Germany and Germans,
conquering living space in the east.
* Hitler had no blueprint and no timetable of events.
He combined consistency of aim with complete opportunism in method and
tactics.
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- How far did Germany recover under Stresemann?
- How did the Nazi party develop, upto 1929?
- How did Hitler become Chancellor?
- Howdid Hitler create a dictatorship?
- What were the main features of Totalitarian
rule?
- What were the benefits of Nazi rule?
Full Germany revision
section
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