The rise of the Nazis

Adolf Hitler was born in Austria. In the First World war, though, he served in the German army.
(He fought bravely, but rose no higher than corporal.) When the war ended, he stayed in
Germany and took to politics. He found that he had a gift for speaking – he could charm a crowd
with his words. He was soon leader of his party, the National Socialists or Nazis.

Nazis hated the unfair Treaty of 1919. They said that the statesmen who made peace had stabbed
the German army in the back. The Nazis were ready to risk war to change the Treaty. They
wanted Germany to be a great power again. And they said it would be great when there was a
one-party Nazi state, with Hitler as Fuhrer or dictator.

The Nazis made one attempt, in 1923, to seize power by force. This failed, and Hitler went to
prison for a while. After that, they took part in elections. They won the votes of those who were
ashamed of Germany’s defeat, and people who hated the Jews. (Nazis blamed Jews for all that
was wrong in Germany.) At the same time, their private army of young thugs fought with their
rivals and spread fear in the streets.

But the Wall Street Crash of 1929 was the main cause of the Nazis’ rise to power. As more
people lost their jobs, the Nazis won more votes. By 1932, they were the biggest party in the
German Parliament. Now, the leaders of the other parties needed the help of the Nazis votes. So
they got the President to make Hitler Chancellor (Prime Minister). They thought that it would be
easy to make the Austrian corporal do as they wished.

The Nazis dictatorship

Hitler soon showed how wrong the politicians were. In less than six months, Germany became a
one-party state. The other parties either closed down, or they were banned. Hitler became the
Fuhrer, or dictator. He and his friends now had the power to do as they wished. They could
change the laws, put people in prisons, or make the Germans march to war.

The Gestapo and S.S. (state police) got rid of those who objected to Nazi rule. They rounded up
the top men in the anti-Nazi parties and trade unions, and put them in concentration camps.

Nazis Germany

Spies were soon at work in factories, shops, clubs, and in each street. People who grumbled
about the Nazis were sent to the camps.

It was the job of Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda, to keep the people on the Nazis
side. So Goebbels took control of the press and radio. He made them give out the Nazi version of
the news, and urge the Germans to love the Fuhrer and hate the Jews. The wireless brought
Hitler’s voice into every German home.
The Nazis tried to make sure that the children were on their side too. Schools taught young
people to obey the Fuhrer. New history textbooks told of the great deeds of the Germans of the
past and told lies about the ‘wicked’ jews. New biology nooks proved that the Germans were the
master race. Teachers who could not swear to follow Hitler were sacked.

Jobs, guns and jews

The Nazis’ biggest success was in finding work for the unemployed. Thousands of men were
employed building the new motorways. Thousands more got jobs as civilian service clerks. (A
lot of them took the places of Jews who had been sacked.) And when the Nazis urged married
women to stay at home, men took their posts in offices and schools.

But the main boost to jobs came when Hitler began to build up the army, navy and air force
again. From 1935, all young men had to do two years army service. Large numbers of men got
jobs in factories. The shipyards were busy again, also, making warships and submarines.

All of this was good news for the owners of factories and shipyards. They made big profits from
the arms orders, and were on good terms with Hitler and the Nazis. So were the officers in the
armed forces. They were glad to see Germany strong and well-armed again. And most of them
were ready to use the arms in war.

The people with least reason to like the Nazis, of course, were the Jews. When the Nazis came to
power, Jewish teachers and civil servants were sacked. Books by Jewish authors were burned,
and in 1935 a new law banned marriage between Christians and Jews. After 1938, Jews were not
allowed to be doctors, lawyers, pr businessmen. They could not go to cinemas or hotels, and they
were not allowed to own cars. Rightly fearing that there might be worse to come, many Jews fled
abroad.

One day in November 1938 … I cycled into town. Along the main street, the windows of Jewish
shops had been smashed. Their contents had been looted, and were lying torn, broken up and
scatterd. Shop signs with Jewish names had been hauled down. Books were burning outside a
bookshop, and anti-Jewish slogans were screaming from walls and hoardings next to giant
swastikas. Stormtroopers were in command of the street, and still more were arriving in open
trucks.