THE RISE OF HITLER

AND THE MISTAKES

MADE BY HIM IN WW II.
Yashvi Agarwal, 19089
Group= 12
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF NAZI
PARTY
◦ Anton Dexter established the German Worker’s Party in January 1919. After the First World War, Munich was
politically unstable and people of Germany were keen on supporting and trying out newer ideologies.
◦ This party believed in extremist ideas like hostility towards the Treaty of Versailles, strong feelings of
nationalism, etc.

◦ The name of this party was changed to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) on 24
February 1920. This party is popularly known as the Nazi Party of Germany.

◦ Adolf Hitler was born on 20th April 1889 in a small town in Austria. In 1913, he moved to Munich and he
enlisted himself to join the Germany Army after the First World War broke out. His task in the army was to take
messages back and forth off the frontline.

◦ In a meeting of the party, he met with the key speaker and impressed him with his ideologies and oratory skills.
The speaker, Drexler invited Hitler to join the party.
◦ He was unconvinced by its want of organisation, and set about transmuting the group. He became in
charge of staffing and propaganda, and organised bigger party meetings and rallies, where he would give
impressive speeches. His eloquence skills soon became crucial to the party.
◦ On the 11 July 1920, over a disagreement about merging with another party, Hitler resigned. Hitler stated
he would only return if he was made party chairman, with dictatorial powers. Realising the loss of their
main speaker could potentially ruin the party, Drexler and the committee agreed to Hitler’s demands.
Hitler became the party chairman.
◦ Preceding to Hitler joining, the Nazi Party held extremely nationalist, racist and antisemitic views. After
Hitler had joined the party, he expanded upon and marketed these ideas.
Ideologies of Hitler
◦ Hitler had a racist world view. He believed that people could be separated into a hierarchy of different races,
where some races were superior and others were inferior. Hitler believed the German race to be the superior
race, and called the German race ‘Aryan’.
◦ Hitler and the Nazis considered Jews to be an inferior race of people, who set out to weaken other races and
take over the world. Hitler believed that Jews were particularly destructive to the German ‘Aryan’ race, and did
not have any place in Nazi Germany
◦ Hitler also wanted to rid Germany of the disabled, homosexuals, Roma and Sinti, and other minorities that did
not fit in to his idea of an Aryan race. The Nazis labelled these groups ‘a-social’.
◦ Hitler was an extreme nationalist, believing the German ‘Aryan’ race should dominate. His expansionist
policies sought ‘Lebensraum’ for the German people.
◦ Hitler wanted to create a generation of young Aryans who were physically fit and totally obedient through
programmes such as Hitler Youth. He believed these policies would unite Germany and ensure it was the
strongest nation on earth.
THE MUNICH PUTSCH
◦ On the 8 November 1923, Hitler attempted to pull off a military coup and overthrow the Weimar
Republic. This was called the Munich Putsch, although it is sometimes referred to as the Beer Hall
Putsch.
◦ On the 8 November 1923, he marched into a beer hall in Munich, where von Kahr was giving a speech.
Hitler declared his intention to take over the government and start a national revolution. Kahr soon
withdrew his support and declared the Nazi Party a banned organisation. Hitler was arrested and sent to
Landsberg Prison for trial for treason. His verdict came out to be guilty, but the judge was empathetic and
announced only a jail term of five years, but Hitler ended up serving only nine months of jail. During his
Jail time, he wrote his autobiography Mein Kampf.
HITLER’S RISE
◦ Alfred Rosenberg took control of the Nazi Party as Hitler was in jail. But Rosenberg proved to be a weak leader and
the Party divided due to issues. The Munich Putsch gave Hitler the lesson that he would not be able to take control of
Germany through force. Therefore, it was decided to adopt a new approach and that is to win support of the people
through election. He was released from the jail on 20 December 1924. He also managed to convince the chancellor
of Bavaria to remove the ban on the Nazi party.
◦ Hitler then went on to organise the Bamberg conference in February 1926. The main focus of Hitler by organising
the conference was to reunify the party by sorting out the issues and to form a new plan for the coming future. He
was most successful and able to do so.
◦ Hitler made groups of the Nazi party. The Strum Abeilung (SA) was the Paramilitary group of the party. It was
formed in 1921. This consisted of people who were previously employed in the army and other unemployed men.
this group was most responsible for protecting the leaders of the Nazi party and disrupting the campaigns of the
opponents.
◦ In 1925, Hitler also established Schutzstaffel (SS). This is a smaller group and they were chosen on the basis of their
racial purity and their loyalty towards Hitler and his ideologies. This group was viewed as the defender of the pure
Aryan race that the Nazi ideology believed in. These two groups were used to establish terror in the minds of the
opposition to subordination.
◦ Nazi party was using its groups, the SA and SS terrorize the opponents into subordination. It was also
focusing on gaining the support of the common people through legitimate mean, that is, through
propaganda and advertising and speeches.
◦ Through the campaign the party was able to paint a picture of Hitler as a strong, Nationalist leader that
will bring great power to Germany.
◦ The economic instability in Germany in the 1920s, as a result of the consequences of the first world
war played a major part in establishing and popularizing the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler. Germany was
one of the worst hit countries due to the Wall Street crash of 1929.
◦ The wages of people decreased and they were facing unemployment. poverty in people also increased.
This was viewed by the people of Germany as a failure of the Weimar democracy and as a result the
economic crisis turned into a political crisis as well. people were now ready accept new ideologies and
look for solutions elsewhere and the Nazi propaganda attracted people towards them.
◦ The failure of the government to stabilize the political and economic crisis in Germany only increased
the popularity of the Nazi party. In another election in July 1932, the Nazi party emerged to be the
largest party with 230 seats.
◦ Hitler was finally appointed as the chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933.
◦ The German Parliament building was set on fire on 27 February 1933 by the party. This lead to panic
and terror in the minds of the people. for this a communist was arrested and the Nazi party use the
situation to their advantage for encouraging anti-communism. This helped them to turn the public against
the communists, one of the biggest opponents of the Nazi party.
◦ The emergency decree was signed on 28 February 1933 and the democratic rights of people were
suspended. Using the pass of this emergency decree, the Nazis became very powerful and the freedoms
of people had been suppressed.
◦ President Hindenburg died at the age of 87 on the 2 August 1934. Shortly after Hindenburg’s death,
Hitler announced that offices of the chancellor and the president were to be combined to create one
position, the Führer and chancellor. Hitler announced that he would occupy this new role.
◦ The people were asked to vote whether they approve of the merging of these officers or not on 19 August
1934. Out of the total number of voters 89.93% people voted in favour of Hitler. Now with the death of
Hindenburg, there was no limit to the powers of Hitler and he emerged to be a dictator.
HITLER AND WW II
◦ Hitler has written in his autobiography that has main ambition now was to unify the people of Germany. He
was also an extremist whose ambition was expansion especially in the east including expansion in Poland,
the Ukraine, and the USSR. He saw a strong Ally in faces Italy to realise his ambition. before he could go
forth with his expansion plans, he needed to remove the restrictions placed on Germany after the first world
war by the Treaty of Versailles.
◦ In 1936 a Rome Berlin Axis was proclaimed by Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator. “Shortly afterward
came the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan; and a year later all three countries joined in a pact.
◦ In February 1938, Hitler invaded and annexed Austria with the help of Italy. Germany launched an attack
on Poland on September 1, 1939. 2 days after, honouring their guarantee Britain and France declared War
on Germany.
◦ This marked the beginning of WW II.
◦ One of the main factors for the success of Hitler's foreign policy was opportunism and timing. he also had
his skill of judging and protecting the moods and behaviour of Democratic leaders and exploiting their
weaknesses despite the fact that he spoke no foreign language or went anywhere other than Austria.
MISTAKES BY HITLER
◦ Germany was very successful in 1941 in the Second World War. it has managed to capture most of the
Western Europe and there were no serious signs of resistance to the German rule.
◦ But now Germany was facing a fundamental problem, that being, it did not have the resources to fight on
so many fronts at the same time. the armaments minister of Germany, Fritz Todt had realised it. He was
killed in a plane crash on 8 February 1942 and his position was given to Albert speer. He was extremely
faithful to Hitler, and had a will to win. Asa result, he amped up the arms production in Germany. He
drastically increased the plane and tanks production. But by 1941, Germany did not have to contend only
with the arms produced in Britain and Soviet Union, but also the arms production of the US.
◦ Fearing the complete domination of Germany over the entire Europe, the US started to support Britain by
supplying arms and ammunition. When Pearl Harbour was attacked by Japan, Hitler saw this as an
opportunity to attack the US convoys as he believed that the US will be preoccupied with the war in the
Pacific. But Hitler was wrong in underestimating the power of the US.
BLUNDERS BY HITLER
◦ Letting Britain off the hook- by steering away U-boats.
◦ Holocaust.
◦ Not timely changing the German Code Enigma.
◦ Declaring a war on the US just after Pearl Harbour attack in the US by Japan.
◦ Underestimating the Soviet Union.
◦ The Barbarossa attack.
◦ Not preparing for the winters of the Soviet Union.
◦ Strategic blunder at Stalingrad.
◦ Decreasing German morale.
◦ Campaign at Kursk.
◦ Loosing support of allies and people.
◦ Own people turned against him.
HITLER’S PLACE IN HISTORY
◦ He was probably the greatest public speaker in the history of mankind. His speeches were so enthusiastic and powerful that
he was able to make people believe in things they would not normally do.
◦ Banning Nuclear and Atomic weapons: In 1938, two German scientist found the way to make atomic bombs but was
opposed by Hitler. Hitler understood how atomic bombs can threaten every life forms so use of atomic weapons was banned.
◦ Banning Vivisection: Germany became the first country to ban any animal experiment for human research.
Hitler was very concerned about animal conservation. Later this act was followed by the world.
◦ Highways: Hitler didn’t like to have roads, back roads or shortcuts. He wanted Germany to run efficiently, so he invented the
Highways systems that are used by the whole world today.
◦ Anti-tobacco: Hitler was strongly against smoking. The Nazi also connected that smoking increases the risk of cancer.
They found out that smoking increases the risk of miscarriage in a pregnant woman which is now known by everyone. In
1940, annual cigarettes per person consumption were reduced to 749 where Americans smoked over 3000.
◦ Inspiration: Above all of these, he is an inspiration for generations to come. People with willpower can actually make an
impact on the world. A below average IQ student went on to be one of the greatest leaders of Germany and changed
Germany for better.
◦ There was no one who equalled his ability to exploit and shape events to his own ends. The power that he
wielded was unprecedented, both in its scope and in the technical resources at its command. His ideas
and purposes were accepted in whole or in part by millions of people.
◦ Hitler was, as he himself said on a few occasions, a secretive man; and some of his views and decisions
differed at times from his public expressions.
◦ For a long time, historians and other commentators took it for granted that Hitler’s wishes and ambitions
and ideology were clearly (and frighteningly) set forth in Mein Kampf. In the first, autobiographical,
portion of Mein Kampf, however, he twisted the truth in at least three matters: his relationship to his
father (which was very different from the filial affection he had set forth in Mein Kampf); the conditions
of his life in Vienna (which were less marked by abject poverty than he had stated); and the
crystallization of his worldview, including his anti-Semitism, during his Vienna years (the evidence now
suggests that this crystallization occurred much later, in Munich).
◦ The popular view of Hitler often involves assumptions about his mental health. There has been a
tendency to attribute madness to Hitler. Despite the occasional evidences of his furious outbursts, Hitler’s
cruelties and his most extreme expressions and orders suggest a cold brutality that was fully conscious.
The attribution of madness to Hitler would of course absolve him from his responsibility for his deeds
and words
◦ What is indisputable is that Hitler had a certain tendency to hypochondria; that he ingested vast amounts
of medications during the war; and that as early as 1938 he convinced himself that he would not live long
—which may have been a reason for speeding up his timetable for conquest at that time.
◦ Hitler possessed mental abilities that were denied by some of his earlier critics: these included an
astonishing memory for certain details and an instinctive insight into his opponents’ weaknesses. Again,
these talents increase, rather than diminish, his responsibility for the many brutal and evil actions he
ordered and committed.
◦ His most amazing achievement was his uniting the great mass of the German (and Austrian) people
behind him. Throughout his career his popularity was larger and deeper than the popularity of the
National Socialist Party. A great majority of Germans believed in him until the very end. In this respect
he stands out among almost all of the dictators of the 19th and 20th centuries, which is especially
impressive when we consider that the Germans were among the best-educated peoples in the 20th
century.
◦ The economic and social successes, for which he fully took credit, during his early leadership: the virtual
disappearance of unemployment, the rising prosperity of the masses, the new social institutions, and the
increase of German prestige in the 1930s—achievements unparalleled in the histories of other modern
totalitarian dictatorships.
◦ By 1938 Hitler had made Germany the most powerful and feared country in Europe (and perhaps in the
world). He achieved all of this without war (and there are now some historians who state that had he died
in 1938 before the mass executions began, he would have gone down in history as the greatest statesman
in the history of the German people).
◦ It took the overwhelming, and in many ways unusual, Anglo-American coalition with the Soviet Union
to defeat the Third Reich; and there are reasons to believe that neither side would have been able to
conquer him alone.51 At the same time it was his brutality and some of his decisions that led to his
destruction, binding the unusual alliance of capitalists and communists, of Churchill and Roosevelt and
Stalin together.
◦ However, because of the brutalities and the very crimes associated with his name, it is not likely that
Hitler’s reputation as the incarnation of evil will ever change.
◦ Nothing can change the fact that he caused the death of millions of people, not just through holocaust,
but war crimes and by starting the Second World War.