Hitler's Germany, 1929-1941 – A Level History CAIE Revision

Hitler’s Germany, 1929-1941

The economic turmoil of the Great Depression in 1929 provided an opportunity for the extremist parties to rise, including Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party).
Hitler leveraged the social discontent and economic despair through his charismatic leadership and promises to restore national pride and economic stability. His anti-communist, anti-Semitic and ultra-nationalist ideologies resonated with the masses.
In 1933, Hitler was appointed as Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg. Hitler consolidated his position through the Enabling Act, which gave him dictatorial powers.

Hitler quickly moved to establish a one-party state, suppressing opposition parties and enacting policies that gave him total control over state apparatus.
The Night of the Long Knives in 1934 saw the purge of the SA, Hitler’s own paramilitary organisation, to appease the German army and eliminate internal opposition within the Nazi Party.
Following President Hindenburg’s death in 1934, Hitler declared himself Führer, combining the offices of President and Chancellor.

The Reichstag fire in 1933, which the Nazis blamed on communists, was used as an excuse to enforce the Reichstag Fire Decree suspending civil liberties and political rights.
Within months, Hitler proposed the Enabling Act, which gave him the power to enact laws without the involvement of the Reichstag, effectively establishing his dictatorial rule.

The Nazis’ economic policy involved massive public investment in job creation schemes, such as the motorway network (Autobahn), aiming to make Germany self-reliant (autarky).
Hitler endeavoured to indoctrinate the German public through pervasive propaganda, executed by Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda, which glorified the Nazi Party, Hitler and their ideologies.
The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 stripped Jews of their citizenship and initiated a campaign of organised persecution.

In stark violation of the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler executed large-scale rearmament, reintroduced conscription, and militarised the Rhineland.
Hitler annexed Austria in the Anschluss of 1938 and later the German-speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. The Munich Agreement of 1938, signed by Britain and France, allowed this in an unsuccessful attempt to maintain peace (appeasement).
Further aggression was seen with the invasion of Poland in 1939, marking the start of World War II. He later invaded Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Russia.

Hitler aimed to create a Volksgemeinschaft, a racially-pure and unified Aryan society. This involved policies promoting racial hygiene, persecution of minorities, and the promotion of gender roles.
The Nazis also introduced social and welfare policies including Strength Through Joy and Beauty of Labour programmes to gain popular support.
Education and youth movements, like the Hitler Youth, were heavily influenced with Nazi ideology to create loyal Aryan citizens.

By late 1941, Hitler’s anti-Semitic policies escalated dramatically towards the Final Solution: the systematic genocide of approximately six million Jews, also known as the Holocaust. This was enacted through mass shootings, gas vans and extermination camps.