By 1938, Adolf Hitler had turned his attention toward Central Europe. His policy of uniting ethnic Germans within a “Greater Germany” had already been proclaimed for years, and Austria was a central target of this ambition.
Austrian Nationalist Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg had attempted to preserve Austrian independence while easing tensions with Germany. When the two met in February 1938, Hitler made clear that Austria’s sovereignty was no longer acceptable.
What is all this nonsense about your independence? Whether Austria is independent or not is not the question. There’s only one thing to discuss. Do you want the Anschluss brought about with bloodshed or without?
Hitler speaking with Schuschnigg
Schuschnigg announced a referendum on independence for 13 March, believing that a majority of Austrians would reject union with Germany. In response, Hitler ordered military preparations and demanded Schuschnigg’s resignation. Under threat of invasion and without support from Britain or France, Schuschnigg stepped down, and German troops entered Austria unopposed.
A photo of German soldiers driving through the Austrian streets
Although the annexation was achieved through intimidation and political coercion, it was not imposed on an entirely unwilling population. Austrian Nazis had been active for years, and many Austrians welcomed German forces with public celebrations. Another referendum held in April 1938 reported that 99.7 percent of voters approved of union with Germany, but the vote was conducted under conditions of propaganda, intimidation, and the exclusion of Jewish voters and political opponents. While many Austrians opposed annexation, a significant proportion supported it, particularly among German nationalists and Nazi sympathisers.
The consequences were immediate. Austrian Jews and political opponents were subjected to public humiliation, violence, and dispossession, often carried out by Austrian civilians as well as German authorities. In the weeks following the annexation, hundreds of Austrian Jews committed suicide, fearing worse under Nazi rule. Austria’s independence was destroyed, and its population was absorbed into the structures of the Nazi state.
Czechoslovakia was a democratic state with a modern army and extensive border fortifications, particularly in the Sudetenland, a mountainous region inhabited largely by ethnic Germans and held much of Czechoslovkia’s industry. With Austria annexed, Germany now surrounded the state of Czechoslovakia on three sides, who had open intentions about wanting to take Czechoslovakian territory. It was allied to France and had an agreement with the Soviet Union, but geographic and political realities weakened these arrangements. Soviet assistance would have required passage through Poland or Romania, both hostile to communism, and France showed little willingness to fight without British support.
A map of Czechoslovakia
Hitler claimed that ethnic Germans in the Sudetenland were oppressed and demanded that the territory be transferred to Germany. While minority grievances existed, the demand went far beyond cultural rights and threatened Czechoslovakia’s territorial integrity and security. Czechoslovakia appealed to Britain and France for support. Instead, both powers sought to avoid war by encouraging territorial concessions.
However much we may sympathise with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful neighbour, we cannot, in all circumstances, undertake to involve the whole British Empire in war simply on her account. If we have to fight, it must be on larger issues than that. I am myself a man of peace to the depths of my soul. Armed conflict between nations is a nightmare to me. But if I were convinced that any nation had made up its mind to dominate the world by fear of its force, I should feel that it should be resisted. And that such a domination like the people who believe in liberty, would not be worth living. But war is a fearful thing, and we must be very clear before we embark on it, that it is really the great issues that are at stake, and that a call to risk everything in their defense, when all the consequences are weighed, is irresistible.
Chamberlain’s statement on Czechoslovakia
In September 1938, Britain and France convened a conference with Germany and Italy to resolve the crisis. Czechoslovak representatives were not invited to attend. At the conference, Germany was granted the Sudetenland in return for Hitler’s promise that he would make no further territorial claims in Europe. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned home declaring that the agreement had secured “peace in our time.” The settlement dismantled Czechoslovakia’s defences and transferred major industrial resources to Germany.
Neville Chamberlain waving the agreement
The loss of the Sudetenland left Czechoslovakia strategically and politically crippled. Hungary seized southern Slovak territories soon afterward, while Germany supported a separatist movement in Slovakia that resulted in the creation of a dependent Slovak state under German influence. In March 1939, German forces occupied the remaining Czech lands and transformed them into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. This action demonstrated that Hitler’s promises at Munich had been tactical rather than sincere, and that his objectives extended beyond the unification of German-speaking populations.
At the same time, Germany exerted pressure on Lithuania over the Memel region, a small territory with a German-speaking population that had been detached from Germany after the First World War. In March 1939, Germany issued an ultimatum demanding its return. Lithuania, diplomatically isolated and facing overwhelming military superiority, ceded the territory without resistance.
Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party in Germany, was appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg on January 30th, 1933. He proposed a foreign policy ideal when he was appointed, that being the ‘Heim ins Reich’ or ‘Back Home to the Reich’ in English. It was the idea that all German speaking peoples should be united under a “Greater Germany”. One of the main targets of this policy was Austria.
A photo of Hitler addressing a crowd after his appointment to Chancellor
Austria has an almost entirely German speaking population and is the second largest population of German speakers. The First Austrian Republic was established in the aftermath of the First World War and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Due to much political instability, massive violent riots and economic hardship, Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss of the Fatherland Front, a right-wing conservative, authoritarian, nationalist, corporatist, and Catholic organisation that opposed what it called “heathen” Nazism, took power in March 1933. Dollfuss suspended parliament in 1933 and gradually established an authoritarian state, replacing Austria’s democratic system by 1934. However, political instability persisted, leading to a short civil war between the Fatherland Front and social democrats in February of 1934, ending in Dollfuss’ assassination by Austrian Nazis in July. Because of Hitler’s policy regarding the Austrians, they began receiving political and economic backing from Fascist Italy.
Italy, governed by Fascist Dictator Benito Mussolini, was the birthplace of fascism which German Nazism came from. It stemmed from groups of veterans of the First World War, who believed that much of the territory that Italy gained in the Treaty of London was not worth the struggle, especially considering it was a lot less than what was originally promised to them by the British and French in 1915. They were organised into the National Fascist Party by Benito Mussolini, a former socialist journalist, and seized power by marching on Rome in 1922, demanding that Mussolini be appointed Prime Minister by the King. He would often threaten political opponents through extrajudicial violence through a violent fascist paramilitary group known as the Blackshirts. These threats materialised with the murder of Giacomo Matteotti, an anti-fascist, socialist opposition leader in the Italian Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. When the Blackshirts met with Mussolini after the murder, they demanded that he crush the opposition or they would undermine his position and do it themselves. At a speech in the Chamber of Deputies, Mussolini took responsibility for the murder and other political violence waged by the Blackshirts and challenged the Deputies to depose him. When nobody did, he assumed absolute power and transformed Italy into a one party state.
Fascism, the Government and the Party, is at its highest efficiency. Gentlemen, you have deceived yourselves! You thought that Fascism was over because I was restraining it, that the Party was dead because I was holding it back. If I would use one one-hundredth part of the energy that I used to contain the Fascists, to unleash them…. Oh! You would see, you would see then…
An excerpt from Mussolini’s Speech to the Chamber of Deputies, 1925
A photo of Mussolini standing in front of a statue of Julius Caesar
Attempting to establish a Greater Italy, Mussolini waged war against Libyan rebels, leading to the Libyan Genocide, with estimates ranging from 40,000 to over 70,000 killed. He also bombed Corfu and secured Fiume through the Treaty of Rome in 1924 after diplomatic pressure. Mussolini feared that German action in Austria would threaten the Italian province of South Tyrol, as it is a German speaking former territory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This led to Italian and German relations being initially sour by the first half of the 1930s.
In 1934, Hitler met with Mussolini in Venice, where he promised him that he would leave Austria alone, at least for now. However, after Dollfuss’ assassination and the failed Nazi coup, Mussolini, feeling his position to be insecure, turned to France for an alliance. He was eventually pushed away after the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 and was sanctioned. However, when Hitler remilitarised the Western Rhineland province of Germany, he demonstrated the weakness of British and French opposition, encouraging Mussolini to seek closer ties with Germany as sanctions collapsed. This softened Mussolini’s initially hardline stance on Austria and began speaking of a potential Rome-Berlin axis by 1936. German Italian relations would soon be brought closer together by the Spanish Civil War.
Hitler and Mussolini standing together upon Hitler’s state visit to Rome in 1938
Entering the 20th Century, Spain was strongly divided between a growing liberal movement and the old elitist collective of bureaucrats, landowners and the clergy, the latter of which manipulated politics in order to remain in power. Eventually, General Miguel Primo de Rivera seized power in a coup in 1923, which had backing from King Alfonso XIII. However, his military dictatorship alienated the leftists and the conservative elite and was eventually forced into resigning in 1930 after great economic downturn that led to civil unrest.
After the loss of Rivera, support for the monarchy collapsed, Alfonso fled the country and the Second Republic was born. Leftists sought radical change, by curbing the power and influence of the clergy, army and landowners, which the right saw as an existential threat. After an attempted coup by General José Sanjurjo in 1932, leftists began to suspect that there was a fascist conspiracy to stop their reforms. By 1933, a right wing government undid much of the leftist reforms and led to mass civil unrest. However, by 1936, the leftists had narrowly won a majority. However, the right and military factions believed that this government, which some suspected had committed fraud in the election, was unacceptable so organised a coup in July 1936. However, it failed in capturing Madrid, so a civil war was born between the right-wing Nationalists and the left-wing Republicans.
A group of Republican fighters in the Spanish Civil War
Both Germany and Italy began assisting the side of the nationalists. Mussolini and Hitler both supported the fascist elements of the nationalist movement whilst also opposing much of the socialist, Marxist, Stalinist and anarchist sects of the republican movement. Specifically, Hitler wanted to create an ally south of France in the event that France acted upon his planned annexations of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. One of the first key operations was helping General Francisco Franco, a key leader of the nationalist movement and commander of the elite and brutal colonial Moroccan forces, bring his troops out of Morocco and across the strait of Gibraltar. However, this, as well as many other actions taken by German and Italian forces, was in violation of the Non-Intervention Committee of 1936, organised by the British and French which aimed to stop intervention by foreign powers in the Spanish Civil War. Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom following Stanley Baldwin’s resignation in 1937, especially prioritised Italy in the agreement, as he saw keeping Mussolini on side as incredibly important. However, as the war continued, Italy, Germany and the Soviet Union consistently violated the Committee ruling. France also was prone to violating it from time to time.
A leaky dam, better than no dam at all.
Anthony Eden, British Foreign Secretary (1935-1938)
A Soviet officer photographed with Spanish Republicans in 1936
Specifically, Soviet intervention on the side of the republicans came at a price, forcing communist voices, especially those who were pro-Stalin, to become more influential in the movement, enabling the nationalists to decry that the Republic was nothing more than a Bolshevist movement set on destroying Spain. This further envigorated the firmly anti-socialist Germany and Italy to continue their support for Spain, which also helped their relationship. One notable instance of assistance was at the bombing of Guernica during a northern Campaign.
Guernica was an old town in North Spain with, at the time, a population of 7,000 people. At around 4:30 in the afternoon on the 26th of April 1937, Luftwaffe and Italian planes blotted out the Sun as the whistling of bombs echoed through the streets. For an hour and a half, Italian and German planes flew over and bombed the town, killing between 170 and 300 people. The indiscriminate nature of the attack caused the bombing to become a symbol of fascist terror. This event was immortalised by Pablo Picasso in one of his most well-known works, simply titled ‘Guernica’. Picasso was in Paris at the time of the German Occupation of France. When a German Officer came into his apartment, he spotted ‘Guernica’. The officer asked Pablo, “Did you do that?” to which Pablo replied, “No, you did.”
A reproduction of Guernica on a tiled wall
The outcome of the Spanish war was settled in London, Paris, Rome, Berlin – at any rate not in Spain.
George Orwell in ‘Looking Back on the Spanish War‘
The war would continue for another 3 years. Whilst Franco, who later became the leader of Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975, was not a fascist, he practiced a very authoritarian and dictatorial government, incorporated much fascist symbolism into his regime and did appreciate Hitler. Spain never formally joined the Axis powers and were never involved in direct fighting in the Second World War, with only limited logistical support given to the Germans. As Spain was otherwise occupied, Hitler turned his attention elsewhere, specifically to the far east and the Empire of Japan.
After the First World War, Imperial Japan had claimed many of the former German territories of the Pacific Ocean. However, by the 1930s, the Great Depression had caused a global trade halt, key to the economy of the island nation of Japan. After a far-right military faction instigated a false flag operation, the Japanese conquered Manchuria, an eastern Chinese province, and established the puppet state of Manchukuo, which was also created to establish dominance against the Soviet East. However, this conquest was done without oversight from the civilian government, undermining their influence in Japanese governance.
The Imperial Japanese Army celebrating a victory at Shanghai
In February of 1936, the Kōdōha faction, or the Imperial Way, in the Japanese Military had attempted to organise a coup by murdering a series of government and police officials. Once the uprising was suppressed, the faction purged and the partakers executed, the Japanese military began exerting more control over the civilian government, weaponising their role in the suppression of the coup in order to gain more influence. They pressured the new Prime Minister, Kōki Hirota, about his cabinet appointments and demanded that only active duty officers could serve in ministerial defence positions, a role only reserved for retired officers before this. This meant that a defence Minister could resign and refuse to appoint a successor and a government would bend to their will, shown when Hisaichi Terauchi resigned as Minister of War when Hirota refused to dissolve the Japanese Parliament, the Diet. Whilst Hitler believed that he could secure neutrality with the British, he believed that an alliance with the Japanese would be more prudent, as he thought that Japan was under threat from a Jewish plot and that securing them as an ally would stop the Jews from whatever plans he believed they had.
It was not in the interests of Great Britain to have Germany annihilated, but primarily a Jewish interest. And to-day the destruction of Japan would serve British political interests less than it would serve the far-reaching intentions of those who are leading the movement that hopes to establish a Jewish world-empire.
Hitler in Mein Kampf
Both Japan and Germany also shared a hatred of communism, demonstrated through their war plans against the Soviet Union, further strengthening Hitler’s want for an alliance. Hokushin-ron, the Japanese doctrine, and Lebensraum, the German doctrine, both stated that expansion into the Soviet Union was inevitable. Soon, the pair agreed upon and signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, an agreement to undermine the Communist International, a Soviet international body committed to global revolutionary socialism. The Nazis officially qualified the Japanese as those it considered to be honorary Aryans. Yasuhito, Prince Chichibu, brother of incumbent Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito), visited the Nazi Party Congress, more commonly known as the Nuremberg Rally, of 1937. Mussolini later signed the pact, one of the first stepping stones in the creation of the Axis Powers, that would come to terrify the world in years to come.
Joachim von Ribbentrop (German Minister of Foreign Affairs, central) signing the Anti-Comintern Pact, with Kintomo Mushanokōji (Japanese Ambassador to Germany, left, seated)
At the risk of appearing to talk nonsense I tell you that the National Socialist movement will go on for 1,000 years! … Don’t forget how people laughed at me 15 years ago when I declared that one day I would govern Germany. They laugh now, just as foolishly, when I declare that I shall remain in power!
Adolf Hitler, reporting to a British Correspondent, 1934
One of the regime’s most immediate priorities was reducing unemployment and rebuilding Germany’s military capacity. Public works projects such as expanding the motorway programme, called the Autobahn, were used to provide jobs and to symbolise national revival. Whilst Hitler initially opposed the Autobahn programme when they weren’t in government, they did a 180 on the policy once in government and after part of the Autobahn had already been built. He also made the Volkswagen, a cheap and affordable car for the working class. Behind this visible recovery, however, lay an increasingly militarised economy.
A photo of Hitler digging at an Autobahn construction site
To conceal the scale of rearmament and bypass the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles, the Nazis introduced MEFO bills in 1934. These were government-backed promissory notes issued through a dummy company, Metallurgische Forschungsgesellschaft (MEFO). Firms producing armaments were paid in these bills, which could be redeemed later through the Reichsbank. This allowed the regime to fund massive rearmament without immediately triggering inflation or exposing the true level of military spending. By 1938, billions of Reichsmarks had been raised through this system, tying economic recovery directly to preparations for war.
Nazi ideology defined women primarily as wives and mothers whose duty was to produce racially “pure” German children. The regime promoted the slogan Kinder, Küche, Kirche (children, kitchen, church), encouraging women to leave professional employment and return to domestic life. Marriage loans were offered to couples on the condition that the wife left work, and the Mother’s Cross was awarded to women with large families.
A Nazi propaganda poster depicting their ideal for a family
Despite this ideology, economic realities complicated policy. Labour shortages caused by rearmament meant that increasing numbers of women were drawn back into the workforce by the late 1930s. Nevertheless, women remained excluded from political life and higher education, and their legal and social status was subordinated to the needs of the state and its racial goals. They were even paired up with SS officers to have the “perfect” Aryan children, since all SS officers were considered to be pure Aryans.
Central to the Nazi vision of the future was the indoctrination of children. The Hitler Youth became compulsory in 1936, absorbing nearly all German boys and girls into state-controlled organisations. Boys were trained in physical endurance, obedience, and military skills, while girls were prepared for motherhood and domestic service through the League of German Girls.
Hitler meeting a group of Hitler Youth members
Education was reshaped to emphasise racial biology, loyalty to Hitler, and physical fitness. Teachers were required to join Nazi professional bodies, and Jewish teachers were removed from schools. By the end of the 1930s, youth culture had been largely absorbed into the regime’s propaganda system, weakening traditional family and religious authority.
From the outset, Nazi domestic policy targeted Germany’s Jewish population. The boycott of Jewish businesses in 1933, followed by the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, stripped Jews of citizenship and banned marriage between Jews and “Aryans.” Jews were excluded from civil service jobs, universities, and professions such as law and medicine. Economic pressure and social isolation were intended to force Jews to emigrate, though emigration was often blocked by international restrictions. Persecution intensified as the decade progressed, shifting from legal discrimination to organised violence.
A boycotted Jewish business in Germany
Ernst vom Rath, a German diplomat, was killed by Herschel Grynszpan, a German-born Polish Jew who killed Rath for deporting his parents, along with thousands of other Polish Jews to a slum of a refugee camp near the Polish border, as the Polish government were not admitting Jews without valid passports who had lived in Germany for more than five years. Many Polish Jews wanted to return to Poland due to Hitler’s antisemitic laws, but were denied entry. Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Gestapo, forced thousands upon thousands of Polish Jews to illegally cross the border. Due to the increased influx of immigrants, faster than they could build homes, the Polish government denied Polish Jews from entering the country, and the Jews remained trapped between two countries who did not want them.
Enraged by the Nazi government’s actions, an angered Grynszpan killed Vom Rath on November 9th, 1938. That night, members of the SS and SA, along with the Hitler Youth and the general public, attacked Jewish businesses, burnt down synagogues and arrested Jews in an attempt to force them out of the country. Over 30,000 Jews were sent to detention camps, where many would die. Herschel was arrested and sent to the concentration camps. He was never seen again. His parents, who had survived the war, requested that his date of death be put as May 8th, 1945, the day Germany surrendered and the European war ended. This night of November 9th 1938 is known as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass.
A Jewish business having been attacked as a cause of Kristallnacht, German for Night of Broken Glass
Kristallnacht marked a decisive shift from discriminatory legislation to open, state-directed violence. Jewish property was confiscated, insurance payouts were denied, and the Jewish community was collectively fined for the damage. Concentration camps, originally used mainly for political prisoners, increasingly became instruments of racial persecution.
I think it would not be saying too much to assert that this evening at least 20 million people in Germany and beyond Germany’s borders will be listening to the speech of Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler. If the Jewish press still thinks it can intimidate the National Socialist movement with veiled threats, if they think they can evade out emergency decrees, they should watch out! One day out patience will run out, and then the Jews will find their impudent, lying yaps plugged
Joseph Goebbels, Reichminister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment, speaking before the first public speech from Hitler as Chancellor
After Hitler was appointed Chancellor on January 30th, 1933, democracy and freedom in Germany was rapidly dissolved. Hitler called 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 soldiers raided the Communist party headquarters, looking for evidence of a violent Communist uprising. Having found nothing other than inherently revolutionary sounding Marxist literature, Göring decided to make it seem as though it was already beginning.
A photo of the Reichstag burning
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 Stormtroopers (SA), the Nazis Paramilitary wing, to help with the muscle of the operation, the SA being lead by Ernst Röhm. Members of the Communist party were rounded up and arrested. Heads of the party, such as Ernst Thälmann, were 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.
A graph of the Reichstag seats after the March 1933 election (Nazis – Brown (43.91%), SPD – Bright Red (18.25%), Centre – Black (11.25%), Communists – Dark Red (12.32%))
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.
An election poster, reading “One People, One Leader, One ‘Yes’“
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 inspecting Dachau in 1936
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. However, oversight of the Gestapo was eventually passed to Himmler in April 1934, who appointed Reinhard Heydrich, a ruthless fanatic, as director of the agency. Heydrich ended up playing a key role in the creation of the final solution, which led to the deaths of six million Jews.
A photo of Reinhard Heydrich
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, Former Minister President of Bavaria and Nazi Opponent during the Munich Putsch, Gustav Ritter von Kahr and many more. They also attempted to kill Franz von Papen, who had made a public address denouncing the Nazis failure to uphold the rule of law. Some of his associates were killed and he was put on house arrest, after which he resigned as Vice Chancellor. This purge is often called the Night of the Long Knives. At least 85 people were killed during the purge, but some historians estimate it in the hundreds. The pretence for the killings was an alleged SA plot to overthrow the government, a complete fabrication created by Heydrich, Himmler, Göring and Joseph Goebbels. Specifically, Goebbels, who joined the conspiracy later, used his platform as Reichsminister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment to portray the SA as traitors and weaponised Röhm’s sexuality in order to portray SA leadership as degenerates and morally corrupt. In the years following the Night of the Long Knives, homosexual persecution by the Nazis increased greatly.
David Low’s cartoon depicting the Night of the Long Knives, published in The Evening Standard
On August 1st, 1934, about a month after the Night of the Long Knives, the “Law Concerning the Head of State of the German Reich” was passed. It detailed that upon the death of the President, his powers would be merged with that of the Chancellor, Adolf Hitler (who is mentioned by name in the act), under the title of Führer and Reich Chancellor. The following day, President Paul von Hindenburg, who had been suffering greatly with numerous health issues, died. That same day, Hitler made the Reichswehr swear an oath of allegiance. Not to the people or the country but to Hitler himself. 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.
Berlin citizens watching the Reichstag Burn
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.
Van de Lubbe’s mugshot
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.
A graph of the seats in the Reichstag after the 1928 election (Nazis – Brown (2.63%), SPD – Bright Red (29.76%), Centre – Black (12.07%), Communists – Dark Red (10.62%), DNVP – Deep Blue (14.3%), DVP – Mustard Yellow (8.7%))
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.
A photo of Stresemann
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.
A graph of Dow Jones Industrial Average’s value
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.
A protest by unemployed people in Berlin, 1930
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.
A graph of the seats in the Reichstag after the 1930 election (Nazis – Brown (18.25%), SPD – Bright Red (24.53%), Centre – Black (11.81%), Communists – Dark Red (13.13%), DNVP – Deep Blue (7.03%), DVP – Mustard Yellow (4.51%))
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 niece, Geli Raubal, had been living with him in his flat in Munich. Hitler was infatuated with his niece, even to the point where many historians suggest they may have had a romantic relationship. In 1931, she was found dead in Hitler’s apartment from a gunshot wound to the chest. She was only 23. No autopsy was performed and some suspect she may have been murdered. Her death left a deep impression on Hitler, with Rudolf Hess, deputy to the Führer, commenting on his demeanour after her death and often spoke about taking his own life. Hitler’s personal photographer stated that Geli’s death “was when the seeds of inhumanity began to grow inside Hitler.”
A photo of Geli
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.
A graph of the seats in the Reichstag after the July 1932 election (Nazis – Brown (37.27%), SPD – Bright Red (21.58%), Centre – Black (12.44%), Communists – Dark Red (14.32%), DNVP – Deep Blue (5.91%), DVP – Mustard Yellow (1.18%))
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.
Papen (standing up, left) looking towards Göring (right), who is simply turning his head away from Papen
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.
A graph of the seats in the Reichstag after the July 1932 election (Nazis – Brown (33.09%), SPD – Bright Red (20.43%), Centre – Black (11.93%), Communists – Dark Red (16.86%), DNVP – Deep Blue (8.34%), DVP – Mustard Yellow (1.86%))
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.
Hitler (left) being appointed Chancellor by Hindenburg (right) in January 1933
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
Throughout the 1920s, stock prices in the United States were rising rapidly, driven largely by speculative investments. People were borrowing money in order to buy shares and stock in companies, and many believed the market would keep rising forever. The problem was that stock prices became vastly overinflated and disconnected from the actual value of the companies. In addition, unequal wealth distribution between the rich and poor was rife. While some were getting richer, the majority of workers weren’t seeing wages grow at the same pace. Additionally, industries like farming were struggling with overproduction and falling prices. The agricultural industry was hit especially hard by a series of droughts, further damaging the economy. With no regulations, banks were poorly managed and the system was vulnerable to mass withdrawals, which would become a problem when confidence in the market collapsed.
On October 22nd, 1929, also known as Black Tuesday, investors started to realise the market was overvalued. Stock prices began to fall rapidly. A panic began to set in, and many tried to sell their stocks all at once. This led to a market panic, and the New York Stock Exchange had to call in bankers to try to stabilise the situation. Despite their efforts, the market continued to tumble. On October 29th, now known as the infamous Black Tuesday, the stock market completely collapsed. There was an overwhelming wave of selling, with nearly 16 million shares traded. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, a stock market index of prominent companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States, lost 12% of its value on that single day.
A graph of the value of Dow Jones
This began the Great Depression, a severe and prolonged economic downturn that began in 1929 and lasted through most of the 1930s, becoming the longest and deepest economic depression of the 20th century. It affected not just the United States but many countries around the world, with devastating social, political, and economic consequences. Unemployment reached unforeseen highs, many families lost their homes and political instability was rife.
In the United States, Democrat Candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced the New Deal, a series of programs aimed at providing relief, recovery, and reform. These included public works projects, banking reforms, Social Security, and labour protections. While the New Deal did not end the Great Depression, it helped alleviate some of its worst effects and reshaped the role of government in the economy. Roosevelt is largely considered to be one of the greatest Presidents in US History and fundamentally remodelled the Democratic Party into what it is today.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States (1933-1945)
In the United Kingdom, the Great Depression lead to the rise of Keynesianism, a belief that during times of economic downturn, governments should step in and increase public spending to stimulate demand. This idea became a cornerstone of post-depression economic policy. This was a system that ran strong in the United Kingdom up until 1979 and the radical neoliberalism of Margaret Thatcher.
Clement Attlee, Labour Prime Minister (1945-1951)
In Germany, the Depression led to the rise of the Nazi Party, an extremist far right faction that believed that the previous democratic Weimar Government had led Germany to failure, led by Adolf Hitler. He capitalised on the widespread discontent and promised to restore Germany’s economy. He then used state-led economic programmes to reduce unemployment and revive the economy, whilst also putting much of the blame for the crash on the Jews as a scapegoat. As a result, anti-semitism was widespread in Germany, leading to the ultimate acceptance of state sponsored anti-semitism, such as Kristallnacht and eventually the Holocaust. Hitler later went on to start World War 2, which lead to over 70 million people dying.
By late 1923, hyperinflation was in full swing. To explain simply, hyperinflation was caused when Germany continued to fail to make war payments, leading to the French occupied the heavily industrialised Ruhr province, where much of the industry of the Weimar Republic was, and decided to reclaim payments through more materials. In order to pay them back as soon as possible, the government began printing more money. This led to more cash in people’s pockets, so business owners increased the prices of their products. When the government noticed this, they began to print more money, which led to people having more money, which led to prices increasing, which ultimately led to people hauling around wheelbarrows full of money in order to buy a loaf of bread. And, as I’m sure you’re aware, the more of something you have, the less valuable it becomes. By the end of 1923, 1 US Dollar was worth 4.23 trillion marks.
Many who had savings found them to be worthless and were thus left destitute and penniless, despising the political establishment as it was. Unemployment was through the roof and many Germans began to turn to extreme alternatives to the established government. High ranking members of the Bavarian government organised a meeting at the Bürgerbräu Keller, a beer hall in Munich, to discuss the establishment of an authoritarian regime in Bavaria, that would not adhere to the rules of other Weimar German States, despising the central government’s passive action against the French Occupation of the Ruhr. Hitler, fearing that the Minister-President of Bavaria, Gustav Ritter von Kahr, would pose a threat to his nationalist revolution, he decided to act.
A photo of Hitler in 1923
At around 8:30 in the evening of November 8th, 1923, where Bavarian officials, including von Kahr as well as General Otto von Lossow and Chief of Bavarian Police Hans Ritter von Seisser, were having their meeting, Hitler stormed into the beer hall with his personal body guard, firing his pistol into the air. “National revolution is underway!” he cried. He then proceeded to state that the Bavarian government had been deposed and that it was now simply a matter of the central government, which was a massive lie. Hitler’s plan was to mimic Benito Mussolini’s March on Rome, taking Berlin by force.
He organised Kahr, Lossow and Seisser into a backroom and forced them to cooperate at gun point. Meanwhile, the SA was tasked with securing communications lines and seizing local government authorities. However, this is when things began to go down hill very quickly. The SA only managed to seize a handful of government buildings. In addition, Hitler left the trio in the hands of Erich Ludendorff, a former World War 1 General and fervent German Nationalist, who let them go, under the pretense that they would go and assist in the revolution. They did not, instead ordering the military and police to suppress the Nazis.
Bavarian Police in Weimar Germany
Agitated, Hitler paced around the beer hall for hours, thinking on what to do next now that his three points of leverage had gone, enabling the military and police to set up blockades around the city. Eventually, Hitler rallied some 2,000 men to march on the Feldherrnhalle, a Bavarian Army war memorial from the 19th Century. After marching for some distance, the group encountered an armed police presence. After pausing for a moment, they continued to march, and the police opened fire.
With over a dozen Nazis dead and four police officers killed in a shootout, Hitler had fled and went into hiding. He was eventually captured two days later and put on trial for high treason in February 1924. High treason carried a sentence of life imprisonment. Despite the multiple other crimes perpetrated during the putsch, such as the murder of the police officers and the assault of Jewish citizens of Munich, Hitler, as well as other Nazis were only tried for treason. The right leaning judge, Georg Niendhart was incredibly lenient on Hitler.
The defendants at the trial (L-R: Heinz Pernet, Friedrich Weber, Wilhelm Frick, Hermann Kriebel, Erich Ludendorff, Adolf Hitler, Wilhelm Brückner, Ernst Röhm & Adolf Wagner)
Whilst the Bavarian government wanted to keep the trial on the down low as much as possible, Hitler wanted to make a scene, often erupting into fiery speeches, interrupting court procedure and telling his entire life story, interjections that the judge actively enabled. Because of this, Hitler’s public profile grew over the course of the trial. Whilst he was found guilty, Niendhart only sentenced him to 5 years at Landsberg Prison, of which he only served nine months. His cell was incredibly luxurious and he was treated incredibly well, often having meetings with party members.
Hitler and other party members, including Rudolf Hess, meeting at Landsberg Prison
He also began to work on Mein Kampf, his autobiography and political manifesto. Much of the book contained antisemitic and racist talking points.
Races which are culturally superior but less ruthless would be forced to restrict their increase, because of insufficient territory to support the population, while less civilized races could increase indefinitely, owing to the vast territories at their disposal. In other words: should that state of affairs continue, then the world will one day be possessed by that portion of mankind which is culturally inferior but more active and energetic. A time will come, even though in the distant future, when there can be only two alternatives: Either the world will be ruled according to our modern concept of democracy, and then every decision will be in favour of the numerically stronger races; or the world will be governed by the law of natural distribution of power, and then those nations will be victorious who are of more brutal will and are not the nations who have practised self-denial.
Hitler’s writings in Mein Kampf
Eventually, Hitler was released from prison. It was then that he realised that the Nazis could not take over a nation by force. In order to create a “racial state” he could not do it from the outside in but from the inside out.
Unlike most other soldiers that returned to civilian life, Hitler elected to remain a part of the military, eventually being recruited to the Information Office under Captain Karl Mayr. He excelled in this line of work, and impressed Mayr with his oration skills, to such a point where Mayr asked him to respond to a letter from a soldier about the Jewish Question. This became one of Hitler’s first, and most notable, antisemitic writings.
[T]he Jews are unquestionably a race, not a religious community. And the Jew himself never describes himself as a Jewish German, a Jewish Pole or a Jewish American, but always as a German, Polish or American Jew. Never has the Jew absorbed more from the alien people in whose midst he lives than their language. […] There is hardly a race in the world whose members all belong to a single religion. Through inbreeding for thousands of years, often in very small circles, the Jew has been able to preserve his race and his racial characteristics much more successfully than most of the numerous people among whom he lives. As a result we have living in our midst a non-German, alien race, unwilling and indeed unable to shed its racial characteristics, its particular feelings, thoughts and ambitions, and nevertheless enjoying the same political rights as we ourselves do. [A Jews] activities produce a racial tuberculosis among nations. And this has the following result: Antisemitism stemming from purely emotive reasons will always find its expression in the form of pogroms. But antisemitism based on reason must lead to the systematic legal combating and removal of the rights of the Jew […]. [A governments] final aim, however, must be the uncompromising removal of the Jews altogether.
Hitler’s letter to the soldier
As a part of his job in the Information Office, he’d often infiltrate parties suspected of communist sentiments. In September of 1919, he attended a meeting at the German Workers Party, also known as the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei in German or DAP for short. However, he found that the party did support Marxism, like the title of the party suggested, but instead was incredibly nationalist and antisemitic, both of which Hitler agreed with.
He eventually formally joined the party and resigned from his position at the information office. He’d often speak at party meetings, impressing Party Chairman, Anton Drexler, with his oration skills. Drexler allowed Hitler to publicly speak at rallies, and became a mentor to him. However, Hitler was less than impressed by the disorganisation of the party, asking Drexler if he could enact vast changes within the party. Drexler agreed and Hitler quickly got to work. He became the head of recruitment propaganda and organised massive rallies, where he would often speak. His oratory skills made him a vital asset to the party.
Hitler speaking early on in his career.
One of his most notable changes was the rebranding of the party to the National Socialist German Workers Party, which in German translates to Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei and was commonly abbreviated to the NSDAP or the Nazi Party. He also created a party logo, which consisted of a black swastika, a Hindu symbol meaning prosperity, in a white circle with a red background, the colours of the former Imperial German Flag.
Eventually, Hitler announced a massive reworking of power inside the party, which would remove a democratically elected chairman and replace them with a “Führer” with absolute power. If his demands were not met, Hitler would resign from the party. Fearing the loss of the party’s greatest speaker, Drexler conceded, stepping down from the role of Chairman and allowing Hitler to ascend to the title of Führer of the Party. This is the first example of Hitler assuming absolute power, by any means necessary.
During these early years of the Nazi Party, many men, who would soon become high ranking members of the party, joined, inspired greatly by Hitler’s words. Ernst Röhm joined around the same time as Hitler and the two became fast friends. Röhm became the only person who would refer to Hitler by his first name, often referring to him as “Adi”. As the party developed and rose in popularity in the 1930s, Röhm would become the head of the Stormtroopers, also known as the SA, a violent paramilitary arm of the Nazi Party.
Ernst Röhm in 1924
Through Röhm another notorious figure within the ranks of the party would enter, a man named Heinrich Himmler. Known for his cunning, loyalty and brutality, he would later become the head of the Schutzstaffel, more commonly known as the SS, another paramilitary group of the Nazis, who differed from the SA in their brutality and loyalty.
Heinrich Himmler in 1929
Finally of note was Hermann Göring. Having met Hitler in 1921, he was appointed as Supreme Leader of the SA in March 1923, and later became a key figure in the political rise of the Nazis throughout the 1930s via the democracy of the Weimar Republic.
Herman Göring during his service in the First World War
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.
By November 1918, German morale was at an all time low. Despite Russia backing out of the war, they were now losing on the Western Front. The Kaiser had abdicated and had moved to the Netherlands, with a new democratic German government taking his place. Erich Ludendorff had resigned and was replaced by Wilhelm Groener. All of Germany’s allies had all either suffered defeat or surrendered. Everyone wanted the war to end but Germany wanted it more than anyone else.
The German government eventually requested that the allies meet to discuss the armistice. They met in Ferdinand Foch’s train carriage, located in the forest of Compiègne. Foch was French General and would be one of the main representatives of the allies.
A carriage of the same design on display in a museum. The original carriage was destroyed by the SS in 1940
They handed the Germans the terms of unconditional surrender without negotiation. They commanded that the German army leave the territories that they had occupied, including Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Alsace-Lorraine. They also requested a demilitarisation of the Rhineland, an area of Germany that bordered France. They also had to surrender much of their munitions and other army supplies. The Germans had no choice to agree to these harsh terms and the Armistice was signed at around 5am local time on November 11th, 1918, with the Armistice not taking effect until 11am.
During those 6 hours, another 3,000 men died for nothing. The last soldier of the war to die was German, who died not long after the Armistice took affect.
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