3.09b Germany, 1918-1945

3.03c Germany, 1933-1945

Question

How effectively did the Nazis control Germany?

• how do we measure ‘effectiveness’?
• what does ‘control’ mean?
  • what are some methods of ‘control’?
• who was part of ‘Germany’?
  • what are some people you think of?
• 1933-1939: Pre-WW2
• 1940-1945: WWI

Criteria

• explain the extent to which Nazis dealt with political opponents
• explain how the Nazis used culture and mass media to control the people
• describe why the Nazis persecuted many groups in German society
• explain the types of opposition to the Nazi regime

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Extra

• explore conceptual understandings and underlying totalitarianism and authoritarianism
• research on the rivalry between the SS and Wehrmacht (German armed forces)
• explore the relation of religion and the state in Nazi Germany (secular/non-secular?)

Famous totalitarian/authoritarian leaders

Inf

Totalitarian: a system of government that is centralised and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state. Authoritarianism: enforcement or advocacy of strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom.

• Joseph Stalin – Soviet Union
  • born 1878, birth name Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili
  • became an activist in 1901, arrested and exiled to Siberia in 1902
  • took the name ‘Stalin’, meaning ‘Man of Steel’, in prison
  • joined Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party, appointed Secretary-General by Lenin in 1922
• Mao Zedong – China
  • considered one of the Founding Fathers of modern China
  • everyone got his ‘little red book’ (PROPAGANDA), published in 1964
    • was intentionally pocket-sized, so that followers could carry it with them at all times
    • later became almost-mandatory
• Kim Il-Sung – North Korea
  • attended elementary school in Manchuria
  • joined the Korean guerilla resistance against the Japanese
• Benito Mussolini – Italy
  • formed the National Fascist Party in 1921, joined coalition government
  • invited by the Italian king for form a government
    • Mussolini quickly secures his position and destroys all opposition
  • made himself dictator in 1925
    • title ‘Il Duce’ (‘the Leader’ in English)
  • involved in invasion of Abyssinia
  • declared war on Britain and France in 1940
  • died by execution in Italy
    • Rise and Fall of Mussolini
• Adolf Hitler – Germany

Forms of government

• authoritarianism
  • submission to authority
  • advocacy of strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom
  • a subset of totalitarianism
    • wants POLITICAL power
• totalitarianism
  • one(s) in power see no limitation to their authority
    • wants power over EVERYTHING
    • begin to intrude into ideology of everyone under their rule
      • everyone has to be the same, with the goal to work for/worship the government
      • e.g. North Korea, “Asia for the Asians” Japanese imperalism
  • seek to control every aspect of public and private life in any way possible

Propaganda

• usually associated with negative imploications
• when people are Deceived from seeing what is in their own best interests
  • by appealing to the emotions in a way that rational debate is sidelined/short-circuited
• relies on:
  • mangled claims
  • Manichaean storytelling
• now includes social media as a medium

Positive propaganda?

• Singapore’s NDP – aerial display commentary
  • shows Singapore’s unity, military strength, wealth

National Personification

• 🇺🇸 USA: Uncle Sam
  • 
• 🇫🇷 France: Marianne
  • no picture :(
• 🇬🇧 Britain: John Bull
  • 

Link to original

People

Reinhard Heydrich

• leader of the Gestapo (secret state police)
• nicknames: “Butcher”, “Man with Iron Heart”
• one of the major organisers of Olympics, Kristallnacht (night of broken glass)
• master architects of Holocaust (logistics – transportation, propaganda, money)
• planned mass executions in newly occupied countries in WW2
• assassinated by Czech soldiers in 1942

Heinrich Himmler

• commander of SS
  • incl. the SS Death’s Head Units
• main responsibility to crying opposition and carrying out Nazi racial policies
• chief architect of Final Solution
• captured by British in 1945
• died by cyanide pill
• diaries were found in 2013
• had a daughter, Burwitz
  • emphatically supported Nazis until her death at 88 years old

Concentration camps

• ran by SS Death’s Head Units
• Jews, socialists, communists, trade unionists, churchmen, anyone brave enough to criticise Nazis ended up in these camps
  • aim was to “correct” them, but by the late 1930s deaths were increasingly common and few people came out alive