Germany

Treaty of Versailles

• 440 Articles
• Talks about territory, reparations, War guilt and military restrictions
• signed 1919 on June 28th after 6 months of negotiations at the Paris peace conference.
• article 231- Germany needed to solely take the blame for the outbreak of WW1 ( angered germans as they saw it as an act of self-defense)
•  Allies need Germany to solely take the blame for Germany to take the operations. 
• Article 119- Loss of colonies 
• prevented Germany from recover/ ability to meet reparations

Terms of TOV

• diktat- dictates peace
• Germany banned from discussing Terms 
• all complaints from Germany ignored bar one
• Germany refused to accept terms 
• told that war would start again if they didn't agree to the terms
• TOV was harsh on Germany 

Reparations

• £6.6 billion
• significant impact on Germany's ability to recover from WW1
• Damaging to military sanctions and territorial losses.
• They were not able to meet installments
• In 1923, they failed to pat therefore France occupied the Ruhr

Territory Losses

• 13% of land lost- 10% industry and 15% agricultural.
• six million citizens lost
• West Prussia and Posen were given to Poland (Economic importance and held the richest raw materials)
• Saarland was given to the league of nations for 15 years
• Disarmament clauses

Disarmament clauses

• Ban on tanks
• Army limited to 100,00
• Disbanded the air force
• Navy limited to six battleships
• zero submarines
• limited to 15,000 sailors
• To extreme so they could not help/ defend Germany.

• Persecution of minorities varied
  • Families with hereditary illnesses were compulisory sterilised- over 300,000 men and women were forcefully sterilised between 1934 & 45
• A 'euthansia' programme was begun in 1939
  • At least 5000 severly disabled babies and children were killed between 1939 & 45, by injection or starvation
  • Between 1939 and 41, 72000 mentally ill patients were gassed before a public outcry
• However, there was no complaint about the extermination of gypsies, 5 out of 6 gypsies in germany were killed in 1939
• There was little complaint about the treatment of 'asocials'- homosexuals, prostitutes, beggars, criminals and the homeless, who were rounded up off the streets & sent to concentration camps

• Jews had experienced discrimination for hundreds of years, they were blamed for the death of Jesus and people were jealous because they were educated and had good jobs
• Hitler hated the Jews, in his years of poverty he became obseesed by the fact jews had sucesful businesses and department stores. He blamed for Germany's defeated in WWI
• When Hitler took power in 1933 he immediately took action:
  • Jews were banned from public service jobs
  • The SA & ** enforced boycotts of jewish shops
• In 1935 the Nuremburg laws:
  • Took away citizenship from Jews
  • They were forbidden to marry Aryans
• Goebbels bombarded Germany with anti-jewish messages and they were refused jobs, not served in shops and segregated from society

In November 1938 a young jew killed a diplomat in Paris, and this was used as an exscuse to launch a violent revenge. Plain clothes ** officers were issued to destroy jewish homes and businesses. People were told that this was a reaction of ordinary people, but no one believed this. It was the day the Germans fully realised what was going on.

After the outbreak of war, persecution got intenser. After defeating Poland, it had to be 'Germanised' and jews were sent to live in sealed ghettos and were used as slave labour. When Russia was invaded, the Nazis found there were an additional 3 million jews, so to solve this they ordered shootings of jews by members of the ** called Einsatzgruppen.

In January 1942, Nazis had a conference at Wanasee To discuss 'the final solution to the jewish question' and it was decided Himmler (head of the Gestapo & **) would be in charge. Death camps were built at many places. The able bodied were used as slave labour, the rest killed, some used for appalling medical experiments. Countless millions were killed.

• Intentionalists believe that the final solution was the long term plan of Hitler, Srtucturalists say there was no clear plan, the policy evolved.
• It is hard to tell as there is little evidence or records but eventually it was down to Hitler, but wouldn't have worked without Police forces, the **, armed forces, Industry and the German people
• However, some escaped before the killing or lived in hiding
• There were 28 known jewish fighting groups
• In 1945 the jews at the warsaw ghetto rose up against the Nazis & held out for 4 weeks and 5 concentration camps saw uprisings
• Many people helped the jews by hiding them, smuggling them our or protecting them such as Oskar Schindler & Raoul Wallenberg
• However, the most sucessful resistors were low profile and not discovered by Nazis, or historians today

Nazi Belief

• Aryan race is superior
• The handicapped, prostitutes and habitual thieves were sterilized.
• Euthanasia for the mentally ill

Communicating Nazi Beliefs

• Propaganda
•  Speeches and Rallies
• Eugenics is schools
• Pupils encorouged to despise Jews
• Campain of hate:
• Newspapers
• Posters and films
• Stereotyping

Laws

• 1933, boycott of Jewish owned shops
• Jews banned from state jobs
• Jews banned from public facilities e.g. parks
• Nuremburg laws: Germans are not human, cannot marry/have sexual relations with a German citizen.
• Forced names for Jews: 'Sara' or 'Israel'
• Jews had no right to vote, travel or own radios.

• Seperate shopping hours
• No Jewish businesses
• Seperate benches
• No radios
• Kept in Ghettos
• Forces to wear Star of David badge

Methods of Terror

• Concentration Camps
• Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht - 1938):
• An angry young Jew assassinated a German diplomat in Paris
• This was used as an excuse for a vicious attack
• Jews were blamed for the attack and all the damage.

The Final Solution

• Death Camps
• Slave Labour Camps
• Hitler wanted to kill all the Jews in Europe
• Ensatzgruppon:(Jews had to dig their own graves, were shot, then bodies fell in)
• Hitler wanted to move Jews to Madagascar
• Gas Chambers
• Collected Jews from Europe, put on train to go to camps.

** - Schutzstaffel

• A military group set up in 1925 as a personal bodyguard for Hitler.
• Run by Himmler from 1929.
• Nazi party's private police force which was totally loyal to Hitler-they warned him of Rӧhm in 1934 and were used to murder SA leaders in the Nicht of the Long Knives.
• Gradually, in the 1930s, the ** expanded to 50,000 and were put in charge of other state security services.
• Another role was to carry out the Nazi policy of racial purification.
• One part, the Totenkopf- death's head units, ran concentration camps.
• Himmler wa careful about ** recruitment- they had to look Aryan and marry racially pure wives.

Gestapo-the Secret police

• Gestapo- Geheime Staats polizei; Hitler's non-uniformedsecret police force.
• Set up in 1933 by Hermann Goering and placed under control of the ** in 1936.
• Led by Reinhard Heydrich.
• Germans feared the Gestapo because they couldn't tell them apart from other members of the public.
• The Gestapo arrested people o acted againt or spoke out in any way against Nazi ideas. Offenders could be imprisoned without trial.
• All states have police forces. However, the ** and Gestapo could arrest people without being responsible to anyone but commanders and Hitler.
• By 1939, 150,000 people were under 'protective arrest' in prisons-they had not committed criminal act such as stealing, but for ordinary things Nazis disliked, like voicing views against Nazis. Once in prison, they were at the mercy of the guards.

Informers

• A network of informer used to check up on anti-Nazi ideas.
• Actively encouraged the general public to inform upon each other.
• Children were encouraged to inform on their parents, and many did; children were encouraged to love Hitler more than their parents.

Concentration Camps

• The first camp opened at Dachau in 1933. Later the first female camp was in Moringen.
• Camps were normally located in isolated areas outside cities and from public gaze. Secretive places, not controlled by normal prison rules.
• Inmates were mainly political prisoners and 'undesirables' such as prostitues and minority groups, that the Nazi disapproved of.
• After 1938, the ** used inmated for forced labour and for busines enterprise like making army uniforms.
• There were 6 concentration camps by 1939 which held 20,000 people.
• After 1939, camp grew in number and size and were used for mass murder.

Courts

• Hitler took control of what happened in courts.
• The National Socialist League for Maintenance of Law was set up- all judges had to be members.
• If any judges dipleased the Nazis, they were denied membership.
• Certain that judges would support Nazism, Hitler gave them freedom to punish even when no laws were broken.
• The New People's Court was set up to hear all treason cases-offences against state.
• Judges for this court were handpicked. Even then, if Hitler though entences were too lenient, he increased them himself.