- - lived in Vienna (capital of Austria-Hungary)
- - served as a soldier in ww1
- - hated socialists and communists
- - believed Jews were “cunning deceivers of ordinary people”[1]
- - won Iron cross in 1918
- - temporarily blinded by poison gas in ww1
- - war gave him a purpose and sense of belonging
- - never considered a good leader
- - thought the Germans had fought and died in vain
- - resentful
- - locks into the psyche of German people
- - November criminals
Thursday, 4 June 2015
Hitler's motivation (initial research)
Possible question refinement
Although I am happy with my current essay question (The critical factor of Hitler’s rise to power in
Germany by 1933 was the turbulent and anarchical nature of German politics at
the time’ To what extent is this question accurate?”) I am finding it difficult to compact the extensive amount of information I have already obtained in a very short time frame. This has resulted in a series of possible questions that still address the same topic being formulated. These include:
“Why did Hitler provide a satisfactory
alternative to the German electorate?”
-
cult of personality
(charismatic leader)
- "To what extent was Hitler’s
charismatic leadership the reason for Hitler's successful rise to power in 1933?"
- "To what extent was the cult of
personality more responsible for Hitler's rise to power from 1919-1933 than political aspects?"
Giving some thought to these questions, I have made the decision to continue to work with my initial essay question as I believe if i delve deeper into research about Hitler's charismatic personality I will be obtaining a whole different field of information altogether.
Initial Research
Factors
impacting Hitler’s rise to power
ECONOMIC
-
WW1
-
Hyperinflation
-
Failure of the young plan
-
The Ruhr crisis: Germany wanted
to rebuild their economy but missed a delivery so France and Belgium invaded
Ruhr
-
The Great Depression (October 1929)
o
This saw the Nazi’s being the
second largest party in the Reichstag due to their empty promises
-
Economic instability before
WW1, therefore the dramatic decline in natural resources and labour
significantly affected the Germans
-
Hitler and Nazi’s gave false
hope, offering national unity, prosperity and full employment
-
1923- German currency collapse
-
1931- German banking system
collapse
SOCIAL
-
Treaty of Versailles was
unpopular (Made to better the rest of the world, “reorganize a shattered world”[1],
Germany was in debt 6.6 billion pounds
-
Feeling of humiliation because
of their constant failure
-
Hitler decides to go into
politics because he believes that the fact the Germans fought and died for
their countries, and took part in a four year hardship was all in vain
-
Hitler brought out a sense of
nationalism
-
Signed an agreement with the
pope to have an affect on religion to try and Control of the media
-
German social union bans trade
unions
-
People are taking extreme views
-
Didn’t realize the treat of the
Nazis because of the communists
-
Propaganda
-
Strength and appeal of Hitler
and the Nazi’s change them
-
Germans scared to vote against
hitler because of his power
-
Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei Secret State Police) set up in 1930 spy and
arrest anyone against Nazism
POLITICAL
-
Accepted Treaty of Versailles
-
The Weimar government weak and
unpopular
-
Fair representation was not
working, never had a majority vote and the number of parties
-
Change of monarchy to democracy
-
The enabling law: Where a
legislative entity grants another group power to do something
-
Threat of civil war (political
parties and the SA)
-
Political assassinations
-
Bans communist parties
-
Gets rid of all parties in 1933
-
Stalin told communists and
socialists not to vote together
-
Role of leader
-
Role of opposition
-
Hitler refused to accept the
title of vice chancellor, requesting to only be titled “Führer” (leader)
-
became a totalitarian state
-
hitler preferred to develop
parallel institutions which competed with one another
-
‘intentionalists’
-
the confusion due to the
competing institutions, caused the Fuher to take decisions and be regarded as a foundation of his power
-
“stress and chaos was entirely
unintended”
-
hitler provided the essential
goals such as territorial expansion eastwards and the removal of “enemies”
-
the basic principles were
altered radically
-
Law banning establishment of
parties, no provincial elections
-
23-29 Stressman was foreign
secretary
-
1925- Hindenburg elected
president
MILITARY
-
military wanted to feel secure
-
they did not want to support
Hitler, after he got rid of the SA they felt they had to
-
internal police forces
-
Wealthy Prussians (had to
supply their own horses, food ect)
-
Blomberg (leader)
-
Army limited to 100,000 men
without tanks or big guns
-
worried about the S.A launching
an attack as they have a considerable amount more people
-
The SS (Schutzstaffel) Hitlers bodyguards, expanded into an army
-
signed on to support hitler
because he got rid of the SA leadership, thus causing them to fall apart
o
THE SA
o
young german boys
o
lower middle class/ working
class
o
gave them employment
o
Roehm (leader)
o
Pro-nazi’s as early as WW1
o
Believed they would be rewarded
for their work
o
Create a socialist revolution
o
2 million men
o
Hitler worried he would lose
control of them and they would become a threat
o
by getting rid of the SA,
hitler didn’t have to worry about a revolution
o
beginning of the army becoming
Nazi’s
o
had to get rid of all his
oppositions or potential opposition
o
always talked about things in
legal terms
[1] Ross, S., Causes and Consequences of the Second World War. Evans Brothers
Limited, London. 1995.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)