Nazi Germany

After World War I, Germany fell into a depression as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. Germans turned to Adolf Hitler, who seemed to have a plan to restore their greatness. From there, the Nazi party grew and grew until it had total control of Germany. Nazi Germany then invaded and occupied surrounding countries. How did Nazi Germany even happen? What was Germany like during World War II? How did it all end? Let's explore Nazi Germany!

Weimar and Nazi Germany

Let's briefly review Germany's government that existed before the Nazi takeover. Toward the end of World War II, the Weimar Government was put into place. It was this government that signed the Treaty of Versailles. Germany was forced to accept the conditions of the treaty, which placed the blame of WWI on Germany. According to the treaty, the Germans were the only ones to blame for the previous war.

As the sole country to blame, this meant that Germany had to pay hefty war reparations. This ignored the fact that Germany was part of a European alliance known as the central powers. As the repayments crippled the economy, the German Mark plunged in value. This angered ordinary Germans, who felt the level of repayments and blame were both unfair.

The Rise of Nazi Germany

In 1920, the National Socialist German Workers' Party, the Nazis, was created. Adolf Hitler, a young veteran of World War I, was made the leader of this organisation in 1921. Hitler used their anger at the Treaty of Versailles, saying it was because of the Jewish population who accepted it. He claimed that many of the Nazi members were war heroes who fought alongside him, though this was unsubstantiated. For men who had felt betrayed, it was a beguiling message.

Soon, hyperinflation meant that Germany could not repay their debts. By 1923, the US dollar equalled 4 trillion marks. The crippled state of the economy continued to feed into Hitler's message.

The fantastic orator, Adolf Hitler, won over crowds by appealing to a cross-section of German society and acting as a helmsman to steer his nation through choppy waters. After another economic disaster plagued the world in the early 1930s, Hitler's popularity grew. In 1932 the Nazi party became the dominant political force in the Reichstag (or German Parliament). After the death of President Hindenburg in 1934, Hitler manoeuvred himself into a position of total control.

Nazi Germany 1933 - 1939 Timeline

The timeline below shows some of the major events that occurred throughout the Nazi regime until the beginning of WWII. The following section will then address some of these events to give a better picture of how Hitler's regime operated at the time.

Nazi Germany Facts

Germany became a dangerous place for people who were not part of Hitler's vision of "Volksgemeinschaft" once the Nazis rose to power. Volksgemeinschaft was the concept of a pure German community. It excluded Jewish people, homosexuals, and political rivals. Jewish people made up one per cent of the population of Germany. The Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1935.

Jewish people, who were able to, fled from Germany. They had to leave sell their homes and businesses, then get exit permits. Another country had to provide them with a visa, but many countries refused to provide these. The rich were able to leave, but the poor couldn't afford to. Many elderly Jewish people were left behind because their health prevented them from traveling. Around 300,000 Jewish people left Germany during this period, though none of them could have predicted the Holocaust.

Lebensraum Living Space

Chancellor Hitler revealed Germany's new foreign policy plan, "Lebensraum" on 3 February 1933. Lebensraum translates to "living space" and it was the idea that Germany needed to expand so that the Germans could have enough space and resources to live.

Hitler wanted to expand "Greater Germany" into the East, through the Soviet Union. This was his goal from the start of Nazi Germany to his death in 1945. Hitler claimed that he hated war and didn't want Germany to enter another one. He even signed a non-aggression agreement with Poland. In 1933, he withdrew Germany from the League of Nations.

Anschluss

In 1938, the Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg banned the Nazi political party. Hitler wanted to expand into Austria and used the fact that Austria had a German population to justify his actions. Hitler gave the Chancellor an ultimatum. When it wasn't reached four days later, he mobilised the German army and invaded Austria in March 1938. This event was known as the "Anschluss", which translates to "joining".

While the invading Nazi army was met by cheering Germans, mobilisation wasn't as simple as it appeared. 17% of the German vehicles broke down on the way to Austria. They had to stop at local gas stations because the German government didn't have enough reserves, and needed tourist maps to find their way. Hitler wanted short and quick wars, not another World War. That, of course, didn't go the way that he had hoped.

Nazi Germany and Appeasement

Still sore from the wounds of World War I, Western European powers were eager to avoid another large-scale conflict at all costs. However, as the 1930s wore on and Germany began to break the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain pursued a policy of appeasement. After the German rearmament and occupation of the Rhineland and Austria, Chamberlain forged the Munich Agreement, conceding the German-speaking Sudatenland in 1938. The following year, Hitler ignored the agreement to invade Czechoslovakia and finally Poland in 1939. Only at this point did Britain and France enter the war.

Nazi Germany: 1939 - 1945 Timeline

Britain and France believed Hitler when he said that Austria was the end of Germany's expansion. However, on 1 September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. The Germans used the blitzkrieg to ensure a quick victory in Poland. On 3 September 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany. Hitler sent two-thirds of his army to France and the other third to Britain.

Germany saw many victories in the early days of the war. The Germans, French, and British sat behind their defences for the first two years of the war. Occasionally, they had skirmishes, but this was quite the contrast to the blitzkrieg in Poland. This period was called the "Phoney War" or the "sitzkrieg".

On 22 June 1941, Hitler turned on his ally, Joseph Stalin, by invading the Soviet Union. This event was called Operation Barbarossa.

Nazi Germany Map

At its height, the Nazis and their allies occupied countries from France all the way to the Soviet Union. For a visual understanding of this expansion, please look at the following map.

The End of Nazi Germany

In the early 1940s, the Allied forces saw some victories. In 1943, German forces lost to the Soviet Union at the Battle of Stalingrad. On 6 June 1944, Allied forces launched a sea invasion of Normandy. This invasion, also known as D-Day, was a combination of the land, sea, and air forces of all the Allied nations. By 1945, the Soviet Union had reached Germany's capital, Berlin.

It had been evident for quite some time that Germany was going to lose the war. Rather than face the Soviet forces, Hitler and his wife ended their own lives on 30 April 1945. On 7 May 1945, Germany surrendered. A few months later, Germany's allies Japan surrendered after the US dropped the atomic bomb in August 1945. WWII officially ended on 2 September 1945.

Liberation

In 1944, Soviet Union soldiers pushed Nazi soldiers further back. When they reached Majdanek, in Poland, the Soviets found the first of many concentration camps. These were camps where Nazis sent Jewish people, political rivals, homosexuals, and other people who didn't fit into Volksgemeinschaft. It wasn't until the concentration camps were revealed that the world understood the horrors of Nazi Germany through the Holocaust.

Opposition Groups in Nazi Germany

There were a many opposition groups in Nazi Germany that tried to overthrow Hitler's regime. They came from different political and idelogical backgrounds. The main oppositions groups in Nazi Germany were:

1. The White Rose - a non-violent student resistance group that emerged in 1942. It was led by Hans and Sophie Scholl, and it distributed leaflets calling for the overthrow of the Nazi regime and the end of the war. The group was eventually betrayed and its leaders were executed.

2. The Kreisau Circle: This was a group of German intellectuals and military officers who sought to create a new, democratic Germany after the war. They were led by Helmuth James von Moltke, and they held secret meetings to discuss their plans. The group was eventually betrayed and its members were arrested and executed.

3. The Red Orchestra: This was a group of communist and socialist resistance fighters who sought to overthrow the Nazi regime. They operated as a network of spies and saboteurs, and they were able to provide valuable intelligence to the Soviet Union.

4. The July 20 Plot: This was a group of high-ranking German military officers who sought to assassinate Hitler and overthrow the Nazi regime. They were led by Claus von Stauffenberg, and they attempted to carry out their plan on July 20, 1944, but it failed and many of the conspirators were arrested and executed.

Given their despotic tendencies to control Europe and beyond, the period of the Nazi party was not without resistance. Let's look at a couple of examples of Poland and France where the resistance groups created the biggest undeground networks.

Fig. 3 - French resistance poster

Nazi Germany: Dissolution

After understanding the horrors committed during World War II, the Allied forces decided to create an international court to try the Nazis, known as the Nuremberg Trials. Many of the higher-ranked Nazis were dead, so who was left to try? The Nazi generals were tried for the crimes of the regime. Many of them were sentenced to death. The Allies enacted the policy of "denazification" in postwar Germany and the victims of the Holocaust were memorialised in museums and monuments across the world.