Germany National Socialism

Although Hitler now held the most powerful government post, the Nazi party still had difficulty obtaining a majority in the Reichstag. Politically astute, Hitler used the mysterious Reichstag fire one week prior to the elections of 1933—then attributed to Communists—to declare a state of emergency and round up his opponents, many of whom were relocated to newly-built concentration camps. Within two months of taking control, Hitler convinced the ailing Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag and hold new elections, allowing him to invoke Article 48, a provision drafted by sociologist Max Weber that granted Hitler the power to rule by decree for seven weeks. During this reign of terror, he curtailed freedom of the press, authorized special security arms (the Special State Police or Gestapo, the SA Storm Troopers, and the SS Security Police), and brutalized opponents. In the ensuing election on March 5, 1933, the Nazis only got 44% of the vote. However, they arrested and browbeat enough opposing legislators to secure passage of an Enabling Act in 1933, making Hitler the legal dictator of Germany. Hitler proclaimed his rule the Third Reich, successor to the Holy Roman Empire (800-1806) and the German Empire (1871-1918).

Vilifying the Weimar government as soft and ineffectual, Hitler’s platform played on post-war anxieties. Germany’s failing economy forced greater uncertainty upon a country that was largely receptive to ideas of anti-Semitism and German racial superiority, gleaned from centuries of struggle for a national identity in an atmosphere of continental anti-Semitism. Nazi rallies were masterpieces of political demagoguery, and the Nazi emblem, the swastika (co-opted from Hindu tradition), appeared everywhere from propaganda films to the fingernails of loyal teenagers. “Heil Hitler” and the right arm salute became a legally required greeting.

To restore the floundering economy, Hitler pushed for massive industrialization, creating jobs in munitions factories. He defied the Versailles Treaty, refusing to pay reparations and beginning rearmament. Next, he annexed Austria—staring down the Western Allies with the infamous “Anschluß Österreichs”—in 1938. He demanded territorial concessions from Czechoslovakia, claiming that ethnic Germans comprised the majority of the population in the Sudetenland. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain assured Hitler in the 1938 Munich Agreement that Britain would not interfere with this hostile takeover in exchange for future peace. The Allies continued to tolerate Germany’s aggressive expansionism until war was inevitable. Not everyone kept silent, though: there were a few resistance movements, like the Weiße Rose (White Rose) student group.

On September 1, 1939, German tanks rolled across the eastern border into Poland. Britain and France, bound by treaty to defend Poland, declared war on Germany but did not attack. The Soviet Union likewise ignored the German invasion, having secretly divided up Eastern Europe with Germany under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Within a month, Poland had been crushed by Germany’s new tactic of Blitzkrieg (literally, “lightning war”), and Hitler and Stalin carved the country up between themselves. By April 9, 1940, Hitler had overrun Denmark and Norway. A month later, Blitzkrieg roared through Luxembourg and overwhelmed Belgium, the Netherlands, and France. Despite leveling most of the city, the Nazis failed to bomb London into submission in the aerial Battle of Britain. Hitler shelved preparations for a cross-channel invasion, turning his attention to the Soviet Union. The German invasion of the USSR in June 1941 ended the Hitler-Stalin pact, aligning the Soviets with France and Britain. Despite the Red Army’s overwhelming manpower, the German invasion nearly succeeded. At his apex of power in late 1941, Hitler held an empire from the Arctic Circle to the Sahara Desert and from the Pyrenees to the Urals.

The Soviets suffered crippling casualties, but Blitzkrieg faltered in the Russian winter. Hitler’s stubborn refusal to allow a retreat at the bloody battle of Stalingrad resulted in the death or capture of over 200,000 troops and represented a crucial turning point on the Eastern Front. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hitler declared war on the US. The Allies began their counterattack in North Africa, and soon Germany was retreating on all fronts. The Allied landings in Normandy on D-Day (June 6, 1944) preceded an arduous, bloody advance across Western Europe. The Third Reich’s final offensive, the Battle of the Bulge, failed in December 1944. As part of the Allies’ advance the following February, the firebombing of Dresden killed at least 35,000 Germans, mostly civilians and refugees. This was one of many assaults on civilian populations worldwide that exemplified 20th-century warfare and the concept of Total War. In March 1945, the Allies crossed the Rhein; in April, the Red Army took Berlin. With Soviet troops closing in, Hilter, along with Eva Braun, committed suicide. The Third Reich, which Hitler had boasted would endure for 1000 years, had lasted only 12.