Hitler’s Buildup to War: Anschluss

One of Hitler’s primary goals had always been to unite all German-speaking people in Europe. As part of Hitler’s buildup to war, he sought to unite Austria with Germany. To this end, Hitler strongly pursued Anschluss (union) between Germany and Austria. The latter … Continue reading →

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Adolf Hitler’s Rise to Power

During Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, he appealed to a wide variety of people by combining an effective and carefully rehearsed speaking style with what looked like absolute sincerity and determination. He found a large audience for his program of national revival, racial pride in Germanic values, hatred for France and of Jews and other non-German races, and disdain for the Weimar Republic. Hitler asserted only a dictatorship could rescue Germany from the depths to which it had fallen. His views changed only minimally in subsequent years and attracted increasingly larger audiences. Adolf Hitler’s rise to power would later become one the most inundating challenges that the German people would have to contend with afterwards.

Economic Collapse during Adolf Hitler’s Rise to Power

Economic Collapse during Adolf Hitler’s Rise to Power was one of the many disappointments of his regime as party leader.At the end of World War I, the Allies (those countries who had fought against Germany) had demanded that Germany pay reparations—that is, payments for war damages. The government refused to pay all that was demanded by the Allies. When Germany failed to pay enough, France and Belgium occupied the coal mines in the Ruhr industrial area in west central Germany in January 1923.

In protest, the German government halted all reparation payments and called for passive resistance by all the workers in the Ruhr area. This resistance took the form of a general strike, with laborers throughout the Ruhr refusing to work. To pay the striking workers, and to make up for money lost due to the stoppage of coal production, the government printed huge amounts of new money. This vast increase in the money supply triggered runaway inflation, as the German currency rapidly lost value. People saw their savings become worthless, while the price of goods skyrocketed. Economic Collapse during Adolf Hitler’s Rise to Power became increasingly visible as result of these trends.

 

 

Mein Kampf, a Tribute to Adolf Hitler’s Rise to Power

Mein Kampf, a Tribute to Adolf Hitler’s Rise to Power was one of the most distinguishing volumes containing his ideas about the superiority of the Ayan race. While in prison, Hitler dictated the first volume of Mein Kampf (1925; My Struggle, 1939); after his release he continued with a second volume. This work contained many of his basic ideas. Hitler believed that history was the record of struggles among races. He held that the superior Aryan race, centered in Germany, would be the final victor and would rule the world. But to win this struggle, Germany would have to be ruled by a dictator and would have to be racially aware. Racial awareness would come through a process of mobilizing the masses with propaganda that appealed to their feelings, not their reason, and aroused their hatred for all other allegedly inferior races, especially Jews. No class or other distinctions in German society mattered.

Another of Hitler’s major ideas was the concept of Lebensraum (living space). He denounced as hopelessly stupid those German political parties and movements that wanted to reverse the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and reclaim what Germany had then lost. Instead, Hitler argued that Germany needed large amounts of territory in which to expand, a need that he would meet by conquering territory and expelling or killing the local populations. Such measures naturally required wars, but not for political or economic objectives. Hitler’s wars would be fought to win vast stretches of land on which German settlers would raise large families. Eventually more land would be needed, but the population would have grown sufficiently to provide the soldiers needed to replace the losses caused by war and to conquer more land. What would happen when the German settlers met on the other side of the globe was not explained. These and other uncertainties made Mein Kampf, a Tribute to Adolf Hitler’s Rise to Power inconclusive.