Category: Background Behind WWII

After Hitler is appointed chancellor and calls for another election, Hermann Göring, wanting to curry favour with Hitler, attempted to dispose of any possible opposition for the upcoming election. The first target was the Communists, who Göring believed were an existential threat to the German State. He and a group of Stormtroopers (SA), the Nazis Paramilitary wing, raided the Communist party headquarters, looking for evidence of a violent Communist uprising. Having found nothing other than Marxist literature, Göring decided to make it seem as though it was beginning.

Thankfully, the fire was quelled but, almost immediately, the Nazis began playing the blame game, pinning the fire as a Communist plot. They immediately called upon Hindenburg to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree, calling for the suspension of habeas corpus, freedom of speech and freedom of press. It is strongly believed to this day that the burning of the Reichstag was a plot by Göring in an attempt to demonise the Communists and uplift himself in the Nazi ranks. An attempt that, unfortunately, worked.

Göring, now having ample reason to arrest political opponents, called upon the SA once more to help with the muscle of the operation, the SA being lead by Ernst Rohm. Members of the Communist party are rounded up and arrested, heads of the party, such as Ernst Thälmann, are captured, their hiding places being ratted out. Thälmann was shot on a personal order from Hitler in 1944 at Buchenwald Concentration Camp. In all, over 20,000 people were arrested, simply for the crime of having a political belief.

That election, the Communist lost 19 seats, whilst the Nazis gained 92. The SPD, who had leftist leanings, also lost votes.

Due to the outrage, both in and out of the Reichstag about the fire, an act was passed that allowed the Nazi Cabinet of Germany and the Chancellor to govern and enact laws without the consultation of the Reichstag or President Paul von Hindenburg.

In addition to the procedure prescribed by the constitution, laws of the Reich may also be enacted by the government of the Reich. […] Laws enacted by the government of the Reich may deviate from the constitution as long as they do not affect the institutions of the Reichstag and the Reichsrat. The rights of the President remain unaffected. […] Treaties of the Reich with foreign states, which relate to matters of Reich legislation, shall for the duration of the validity of these laws not require the consent of the legislative authorities. The Reich government shall enact the legislation necessary to implement these agreements.

Excerpts from the Enabling Act of 1933

The Reichstag had been controlled. Now it was time to subjugate. In July of 1933, the Law Against the Formation of Parties was passed. It was only 3 sentences long.

The Reich government has passed the following law, which is hereby promulgated:

The National Socialist German Workers’ Party [Nazi Party] is the only political party in Germany.

Anyone who undertakes to maintain the organisational cohesion of another political party or to form a new political party will be sentenced to imprisonment for up to three years or jailed from six months to three years, unless the act is punishable with a higher penalty by other regulations.

The entirety of the act

It was signed off by Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, Minister of Justice, Franz Gürtner, and Hitler himself. That September, another “election” was held in which voters were simply given a list of Nazi Sympathisers but who were not members of the party, and were asked if they were for or against the Party. The election was not secret and multiple people were punished for voting no or not voting at all. The Reichstag was now merely a stage for Hitler’s speeches to a crowd of yes men. Democracy was dead and Hitler killed it.

Hitler, however, had higher aspirations. He needed all political dissent crushed as fast and effectively as possible, so he called upon Heinrich Himmler. Himmler had been the Reichsführer of the SS since 1929, the SS being another paramilitary group made by the Nazis. The difference between the SS and the SA was firstly the sheer commitment they had to the Nazi Ideology, that the Aryan Race was truly superior to all other races, and secondly their brutality, both sentiments shared by Himmler. He opposed more conservative Nazis, who believed that the Rule of Law was required to arrest political opponents. Himmler had other plans.

Himmler, now following the will of Göring, weaponises new laws to arrest the Nazi Opponents, under the pretence of Protective Police Custody. Himmler used this very liberally, arresting over 100,000 political opponents. Now needing a space to put these prisoners, he began the opening up of concentration camps, which would be guarded by the SA and the SS would rule. The standard police were not present. As a result, mass executions of political prisoners were organised. It is suspected that at Dachau alone, 40,000 people died between 1933 and 1945, many of whom were Communists, Social Democrats, Trade Unionists and Jews.

Himmler expanded the SS to fundamentally replace the police all across Germany. Himmler also offered a handpicked group of SS members to the highly paranoid Hitler to be his personal bodyguards, buying his complete loyalty to Hitler.

Finally, Göring, in an attempt to counter the influence of the SS, established the Gestapo, a secret police who would report on any anti-Nazi activity and have those who partook in it arrested.

In just 6 months, Hitler brought down the parliamentary democracy, fundamentally reshaped the rule of law and began polluting the minds of the German people through state owned newspapers.

One outstanding issue, however, was Ernst Röhm. Röhm, still currently head of the SA, had ambition beyond just running an auxiliary force. He wanted a Nazi army all to himself and felt he was being upstaged by the rapid expansion of the SS and founding of the Gestapo. He went behind Hitler’s back and began making moves within the army, then controlled by President Hindenburg. Not only that, but Röhm was quite openly gay, something that was strictly illegal under socially conservative laws in Germany and disgusted the Nazis. Hitler believed that the open secret that Röhm was a homosexual, something that he had previously defended, now could be an issue to his reputation, as a leader of a pure Germany. In addition, due to the violence and chaos on the streets, Hindenburg immediately requests that Hitler stops the SA or he will be removed as Chancellor. Röhm was an issue that Hitler needed to take care of and fast.

On the 30th of June 1934, Hitler invited Röhm and many other SA generals to Hotel Lederer in Bad Weissee. Once they were all gathered there Hitler and many SS officers stormed the building and arrested the officials. Hitler gave Rohm the option of him killing himself or he would be executed. Rohm chose to be executed and was shot on the 1st of July in Stadelheim Prison.

This carried on until July the 2nd, killing many, including former German Chancellor, Kurt Von Schleicher, anti-Nazi journalists, Fritz Gerlich and Edgar Jung, Competitor for Chairman of the Nazi Party, Gregor Stasser, a man who attempted to stop the Munich Putsch, Gustav Ritter von Kahr and many more. Once the purge was done with, Hitler claimed that Rohm had been trying to overthrow the government, which justified the killings to the public. He also claimed that there were only 61 deaths, when in reality it could’ve been anywhere between 85 and 1000.

On the 1st of August, a law was made that if the President were to die, his powers would be merged with that of the Chancellor. President Hindenburg died the next day, giving Hitler full control of Germany and its people. When greeting himself to his new army, Hitler made them swear an oath to him and not the country. The Nazi age had begun.

In the late hours of Monday, the 27th of February 1933, a young theology student, Hans Floter, is on a leisurely stroll near the southwest of the German Government building, the Reichstag. Suddenly, he hears a smash of glass, and Hans turns to see a man clambering through the window with a flaming object in his hand. He runs to the nearest police officer, Karl Buwert, who reports it to the fire department as the building is set on fire by the intruder. Firefighters are dispatched.

Meanwhile, Adolf Hitler, head of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party and Chancellor of Germany, is having dinner with Joseph Goebbels, the current Gauleiter, regional leader, of Berlin, when they receive a phone call about the fire. Goebbels answers but writes it off as “a tall tale” and doesn’t inform Hitler. He receives another phone call not too long after, and only then does he tell Hitler of the fire.

They rush over to the scene and meet Hermann Goering, current Speaker of the Reichstag, who cries “This is Communist outrage! One of the Communist culprits has been arrested.”

The Communist Culprit in question is 24-year-old Marinus van de Lubbe, a Dutch Council Communist, arrested by Buwert, only 24 minutes after the break in. He is put on trial, found guilty and executed on January 10th, 1934, 3 days before his 25th Birthday. In 2008, almost 75 years after the fire, he is pardoned by the German Government.

Hitler says that the fire is “a sign from God” saying that it was the beginning of the German Communist Revolution, similar to that of the October Revolution in 1917 in Russia. The fire is put out by 11:30, 2 and a half hours after the fire started. Two other communists are arrested in the following weeks, one of which is killed in prison.

The next day, Hitler requests that Paul von Hindenburg, President of Germany, issue the Reichstag Fire Decree. It ordered the immediate suspension of multiple articles of the constitution as well as the suspension of habeas corpus and a crack down on freedom of speech. This was one of the Nazi’s key moves in order to gain power and instate Hitler as a dictator.

At the Nuremberg trials in 1945 General Franz Halder claimed that “On the occasion of a lunch on the Führer’s birthday in 1943, the people around the Führer turned the conversation to the Reichstag building and its artistic value. I heard with my own ears how Göring broke into the conversation and shouted: ‘The only one who really knows about the Reichstag building is I, for I set fire to it.’ And saying this he slapped his thigh” When Goering heard this, he denied all claims. The fire took place exactly 1 week before the election where they won by 43.9% of the vote and 288 seats. Van De Lubbe was arrested and executed without trial.

The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), who had been in opposition since 1923, won a nearly 30% majority in the 1928 Federal Elections. Despite having over 150 seats in the Reichstag, nearly 100 seats more than their main opposition, the right wing German National People’s Party (DNVP), the SPD, under chancellor Herman Müller formed a centre left to conservative liberal grand coalition, in order to gain a larger majority and form a stronger left.

As a part of the coalition, head of the German People’s Party (DVP) and former Chancellor, Gustav Stresemann, continued his position as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Stresemann attempted to enact the Young Plan, which would help decrease war reparations needing to be paid to the Allies and ultimately fell through. In addition, the new Hoover Administration in the United States implemented vast trade tariffs, lessening US credit to Germany.

With a plan with the US growing discontent with the liberal democratic process, allowing the slow but steady rise of the Nazi and the Communist Parties, Streseman pursued closer ties with Britain and France, managing to get French troops to withdraw from the Rhineland. He was perhaps even in the process of forming an economic and political Union in Europe, in order to counterweight the fast growing economy of the United States. Just after he managed to convince the Reichstag to go through with the Young Plan, Stresemann had a series of strokes and died on October 3rd, 1929. He was only 51. And this was when things went down the drain.

The Wall Street Crash hit not just the US Economy but the economy overseas too. Germany was hit especially hard. Still somewhat reeling from the hyperinflation crisis and needing to pay of Treaty of Versailles war debts, the economy was hit bad. By 1932, 6 million Germans were unemployed due to the hit on large industrial corporations. Small and medium businesses were hit even harder, leading to bankruptcy and eventually closure.

German banks faced massive collapse as loans were not being repaid, and credit froze. This caused a panic in the banking sector, further deepening the crisis. The German mark lost much of its value, and the financial system became unstable, leading to more business closures and layoffs. Due to a heavy reliance on an economy based on exports, a global trade halt further crippled the German economy. Not only that but American tariffs made the situation even worse, making it harder for Germany to trade.

The SDP Coalition collapsed in March 1930, due to the government increasing employees’ national insurance contributions, meaning they’d have to pay their worker’s less, at a time when wages were falling, due to the Depression. This meant that the SDP was no longer in control of the government, so President Paul von Hindenburg, a right leaning former World War 1 General, appointed Heinrich Brüning, leader of the Centre Party, as his new Chancellor.

Now governing in a minority, with only 61 seats in the Reichstag (around 12%), Brüning intended to liberate Germany from it’s debts, war and otherwise, by increasing wages and tightening the credit, a widely unpopular policy within the Reichstag. They voted down the policies, before Brüning passed them by himself anyway. The Reichstag, once again rejected the decree, with nearly all parties voting against it, including the SPD, Nazis and Communists. Brüning called for a dissolution of the current government from Hindenburg, who gladly obliged. Another election was to be held on September 14th, 1930. This is when Hitler saw an opportunity to strike.

He appointed Joseph Goebbels as head of the party’s propaganda division. Goebbels ended up overseeing much of the Reichstag campaign. Between 1928 and the election, the Nazi Party’s membership had more than doubled, to nearly 300,000. The party had 49 newspapers, 6 of which were published daily. The campaign was a massive success for the Nazis, who ended up gaining a large proportion of the vote, becoming the second largest party in the Reichstag. They gained 95 seats and had 18.3% of the vote in an election turnout of 82%, the highest since the Weimar Republic was established.

With nearly 40% of the vote between them, the SPD attempted to form a coalition with the Communists, who outright refused. Ernst Thälmann, leader of the Communist Party said that:

Hitler must come to power first, then the requirements for a revolutionary crisis [will] arrive more quickly

Thälmann speaking in February 1932

Bürning lost his majority and began to rule by decree, implementing harsh austerity measures that were vastly unpopular, but paved the way for the authoritarian way of government that the Nazis would come to thrive upon.

During this time, Hitler’s half-niece, Geli, was living in his flat in Munich, who many believe he had a sexual relationship with. In 1931, she killed herself with Hitler’s gun. She was only 13.

Because of his new large majority, Hitler believed that now was the time to seize power. He decided to do it by running for President in 1932. Many on the right, who had supported Hindenburg in the 1925 Presidential Election, were disappointed that Hindenburg had not dissolved the Weimar Republic so began to back Hitler, whilst people on the left and in the centre feared what Hitler might do, so began to back Hindenburg. With supporters switched, Hitler came second, but managed to gain 36% of the vote, miles ahead of Thälmann’s 10% but still behind Hindenburg’s 53%. However, this was still a testament to Hitler’s popularity and the popularity of the Nazis.

After an attempt at land redistribution by Bürning, Hindenburg, a landowner himself, vocally opposed this, forcing Bürning to resign, who was replaced by Franz von Papen, another Centre Politician. Papen was a recommendation to Hindenburg by Kurt von Schleicher, a right wing aristocratic former WW1 General who successfully halted the Kerensky Offensive on the Eastern Front. In order to curb the left’s threat to the aristocratic elite, Schleicher believed that he could use and weaponise the Nazis whilst keeping them under his control. Schleicher slowly wore Hindenburg down, convincing him to work with the Nazis and hiring Papen, a chancellor who he could easily manipulate. Whilst Schleicher believed he had everything in place, Hitler had other plans. For him it was the Nazis first.

Another federal election took place in July of 1932. The results were astounding.

The Nazis, now the largest political party in the Reichstag at 230 seats, they were getting too big for Schleicher to control. Hitler demands to be Chancellor, a move that, to Schleicher, came way out of left field. Realising that they are no longer talking to a servant but now a mad man, Schleicher and Papen both manage to convince Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag and rule by Presidential decree.

Papen, by order of Hindenburg, travelled to the Reichstag on September 12th with the intent of grabbing the speaker’s attention to dissolve parliament. However, the Communists quickly requested a vote of no confidence in Papen’s government. Papen was highly unpopular in the Reichstag, something which he was very aware of but expected an immediate objection that never came. He stood up and attempted to show the Presidential decree calling for the Reichstag’s dissolution to the Reichstag Speaker. There was one small problem. The Speaker was Hermann Göring, a very high ranking member of the Nazi Party known to be Hitler’s fixer, who simply ignored him and called a vote of no confidence. The motion carried by 512 to 42. Papen was out.

Frustrated at this, Papen quickly calls another snap election for that November. However, Hindenburg, displeased with his unpopularity in the Reichstag, dismisses him regardless. He replaced him with Schleicher, whose primary objective now is to stop Hitler and the Nazis, in whatever way he can.

The next federal election comes around and the economy is looking on the up. Becuase of this, the Nazis lose 34 seats in the Reichstag. Not only that but power hungry Nazis are beginning to defect, only to be picked up by Schleicher. In addition, years of campaigning have left the Nazis on the verge of bankruptcy. Hitler may end up losing all his power. This is what should’ve been the beginning of the end.

In one last attempt to clasp onto whatever power he may still have a chance of getting, Hitler meets with Papen in January of 1933. Whilst Papen does not agree with Hitler on many issues, he still sees him as a way back into power and get back at Schleicher, so the two begin to collaborate and the two vow to form a coalition at the next election. Papen then speaks to Hindenburg, requesting that he, Papen, become Vice Chancellor and Hitler becomes Chancellor. Hindenburg accepts the plan.

On the 30th of January 1933, appointed Hitler as his next Chancellor. Hitler requested the dissolving of the Reichstag from Hindenburg and to schedule the elections for early March. Hitler now has power. Little does Hindenburg know that this the beginning of the end for democracy in Germany.

May all others understand our position and so help to ensure that this sincere desire for the welfare of Europe and of the whole world shall find fulfilment. Despite our love for our Army as the bearer of our arms and the symbol of our great past, we should be happy if the world, by restricting its armaments, made unnecessary any increase in our own weapons. But if Germany is to experience this political and economic revival and conscientiously to fulfill its duties towards other nations, a decisive act is required: We must overcome the demoralization of Germany by the Communists.

An excerpt from Hitler’s first radio address after becoming Chancellor

In 1923, Hitler attempted to overthrow the Government, believing that they were handling the financial crisis caused by hyperinflation terribly.

In layman’s terms, hyperinflation was caused when the German Weimar Government was trying to pay off their war debts so printed more money to pay them. A lot of shop and factory owners noticed that the people had more money to spare so increased their prices. Seeing this, the Weimar Government printed even more money, so the shopkeepers raised their prices even more. It carried on in a circle like this until a wheelbarrow full of money couldn’t buy you a loaf of bread and 1 US dollar was worth 4.21 trillion marks by 1923.

This Coup was colloquially known as the Munich Putsch or Beer Hall Putsch. On the evening of November the 8th, 1923, Hitler, assisted by Eric Ludendorff, former German war hero, and some Stormtroopers stormed Bürgerbräukeller, a popular beer hall in Munich, firing a shot into the air and yelled “The national revolution has broken out! The hall is surrounded by six hundred men. Nobody is allowed to leave.”

He retreated to a back room with Gustav Ritter von Kahr, Hans Ritter von Seisser, Otto von Lossow and a handgun. Hitler had to deal with a crisis elsewhere and during this time, Ludendorff let Kahr, Seisser and Lossow go. The hall was held hostage for many hours and by the morning, Hitler had become impatient.

Ludendorff called for them to march and so they did. 2000 of Hitler’s supporters including Ludendorff, Hitler, Goering and Rohm marched down the street towards the ministry of defence. 130 soldiers greeted them. They stood still at the end of the street for a moment and then began marching again. The soldiers raised their rifles, took aim and fired. Almost 2 dozen men were killed, 4 of which were soldiers. The man to Hitler’s left was taken out. Since they were linking arms, the force of him falling popped Hitler’s arm out of its socket. He staggered away, assisted by other people. Ludendorff continued to march and was arrested. Hitler later made up the story that he saved a child from the crossfires.

Hitler was eventually tracked down to the house of Ernst Hanfstaengl, a close friend of his and future employee of Former US President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on the 11th of November for high treason. He was brought before a tribunal in February and the trial turned into a speech for Hitler, where he essentially said why the Nazi party was so great and why others should vote for them in the next election.

For a crime of high treason, you can be sentenced to life in prison. Hitler was only sentenced to 5 years of which he only served nine months in Landsburg Prison, in a cell that was more of a small flat with jail bars on the windows.

He had friendly treatment from guards, received fan mail and had frequent visits from party members. During this time, he wrote his book, Mein Kampf, which in English translates to My Struggle, in which he talks about his life, ideologies, political views and much more mentioning how he thought Jews were “germs” and society’s “international poisoners” and the only solution was extermination. 228,000 copies were sold from 1925 to 1932 and over a million during the year he came to power, 1933.

He was released from prison and established the SS headed by Heinrich Himmler in 1925. Heinrich was the least physically intimidating Nazi, but he had a way with words, which coerced the opposition into doing Hitler’s bidding. He learnt that the economy had improved, the main source of the Nazi’s rise being the failing economy. However, another financial crisis 4 years later would change everything.

Since the war was over, there was nothing for Hitler to fight against or fight for, since France, Britain and the USA had all burdened Germany with the terms of the Treaty, and he believed his country was betrayed from the home front. He was hired as an intelligence officer to infiltrate the German Workers Party.

At one of the party meetings, the Party Chairman, Anton Drexler, noticed Hitler’s charisma when speaking so gave him a pamphlet named “My Political Awakening”. This pamphlet contained much antisemitic, nationalist, anti-communist and anti-capitalist material, which could’ve possibly embedded themselves in Hitler’s brain.

After fully joining the party in 1920, he renamed it to the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, or Nazi for short, and redesigned the logo to be a black swastika, a symbol commonly found in Hinduism meaning spirituality and divinity and a pattern which you can find around the world including buildings in London, with a white circle and red background.

In June 1921, there was a mutiny in the party, which kicked out Drexler and Hitler became the party chairman, where he spoke at beer halls, a type of large German pub. Early followers included Hermann Goering, a former flying ace, Ernst Rohm, a WW1 veteran and was later found out to be homosexual, and Rudolf Hess, another WW1 veteran and met Hitler at one of his speeches in 1920. Rohm later became the head of the Nazi’s Paramilitary force, the Stormtroopers or SA.